Xander Harris: The Iron Tau'ri
by Gunsmith3000
Summary: YAHF Xander goes as one of his favorite marvel comic characters. However; unable to decide which side of the character he chose to go as - he gets a download of all the variants of that comic character from every available source written, and then some...
1. Chapter 1

XANDER HARRIS: THE IRON TAU'RI

By:"Gunsmith3000"  
Started: 5-19-08

Completed: ??

Disclaimers: Nothing belongs to me other than this insane idea I have that just won't let go. Iron Man belongs to Marvel, Stargate SG1 belongs to Paramount. Buffy belongs to Joss.

Break in continuity: A few days after the infamous Halloween fiasco.

Summary: Xander goes as one of his favorite marvel comic characters, but gets more than he's bargained for.

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Prologue: "The Ninth Symphony"

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The young man many knew as Alexander Lavelle Harris sweated profusely as he tried to balance his body upside down between two rings that were tied to the ceiling of his recently acquired warehouse while doing a series of equations in his head in the wee hours of the morning. If anyone ever knew the extent of the changes in him, they would probably have locked him up just because of the math running around inside his crammed skull alone.

It was scarily beautiful.

Emphasis on "scary", because other memories came with it…

Some were memories of a man that was born a child prodigy with knowledge that was off the scale.

Some were memories of a boy turning into a man and hiding his innate intelligence in the later years once he inherited his father's company and legacy…

Some were memories of a man living a lie as a womanizer and an alcoholic to hide the fear of being alone, until that lie turned replaced the truth.

Some were memories of becoming a Technophile, a doctor, and a Sorcerer Supreme…

The rest were a blur of being a madman, a saint, a bum, a degenerate, and various other variants he'd just as soon forget.

Xander flipped off in a perfect dismount to land on his feet, the equations that roared in his mind died down for a while as the answers he sought within for a project that needed to be done came to him. He took the towel off the balance horse nearby and wiped off the excess sweat he had accumulated and strode to the mesh of the of a crudely cobbled Cray computer made out of junk parts that he had gathered since that night. In fact, most of the stuff he had inside the warehouse he now called home was once all scrap until he was able to make something out of it. It had taken him about a month and some nights filled with lack of sleep that made it all possible. If nothing else; he made sure that the computer he had assembled would be the first to come online so he could start on everything else.

Sadly, as the memories within his mind clashed with the woefully inadequate tech that his current reality produced made for some interesting shortcuts that would never see the light of day if he had anything to say about it.

Absentmindedly scratching the spot where a certain chest plating would have been had the rest of costume had been complete when the possession occurred, he clucked his mouth into a wry grin as the antiquated computer system booted up faster than normal with his modifications and started typing.

Tapping out commands on the tweaked auto-cad he had rewrote into the system, he made some changes in the design specs for the armor he would have to rebuild when the suit of armor he wore had turned back into its un-enchanted state after that night. After the spell was over, it had just become another piece of plastic and cardboard made to look like one of his armors. Thank God he forgot to wear the dummy chest plating over the heart that kept the original Tony Stark from becoming a corpse since the armor turned back to plastic, he surmised that the chest plating would have reverted too if he had worn it. Wearing it could really have killed him if that had happened, he thought with sick realization, and he really didn't want to find out even if it didn't.

He winced at that last thought. There were times when the line between him and the memories of the personas that possessed him weren't even there. Yes, "personas", since the original him was an ass and couldn't decide on which Anthony Stark/Iron Man to go as during that night; that indecision caused the dark spell to merge and download EVERY single variant of Tony Stark into his head, leaving behind all the combined memories and intellect into a very inferior space. The result being that the spell made further changes in him to accommodate said knowledge, and with the help of one of the downloaded personas, also bringing him to a point of human evolution where the mind can handle information at such an insane rate that the body also had to adapt. To test out that theory that he had changed in more ways than one, he snuck into the hospital and used some of the medical equipment to run a baseline analysis on himself.

What he found out sent him reeling. While the tools found in the hospital were substandard to him, he was able to get the gist of the alterations the spell had made on him. He realized woefully that one of the Stark variants; namely the memories of the one who had become Sorcerer Supreme in his reality, had made some modifications to the spell itself before it ended. Said persona also thought it would give the young man a leg up since in his reality, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" was a televised series that had ended over a year ago.

It made a scary sort of sense really; the only way for a normal human body to adapt to an overload of possessions of different variants of Anthony Stark cramming into one skull was to alter the human host to a point where it would be able to survive a very unique and severe case of MPD. One of the versions of Tony Stark that became the Sorcerer Supreme in his reality made it so that Xander would be able to make use and integrate said personalities into an even balance. Which was why he cringed when he saw that the new baseline norm for his body, after all the alterations were finished were almost comparable to a Slayer in terms of speed, strength, and healing. He knew that because he managed to nab Buffy's medical files on a lark and collected enough data to match his own observations whenever she trained while he tried to act like twit in front of them to keep up appearances.

He found out that his new heart rate was slower than normal, but not outside of human norms. The readings had indicated a person at rest and deeply asleep. His bone structure and musculature however had increased in density, theoretically giving him more than almost three times the normal range of human limits when brute strength was applied. The accelerated cell division found in his DNA also told him that the Sorcerer Supreme variant also somehow managed to slow his aging and allow him heal from almost any wound. He was not – however – bulletproof, and he was still quite mortal, he was just harder to kill than normal now.

The inherited intellect and alcoholism addiction aside that was now part of his newly formed psyche; the core of each Anthony Stark persona were almost identical in essence that it was almost a mirror image of what the other would turn out due to different circumstances and opportunity. The merged core personalities had to hide the truth of who they were deep down inside that the lies themselves become so much as fact and that what was left of the original truths were flushed down the metaphysical toilet of the mind. Speaking of alcoholism, he also managed to check for any kidney and liver damage and was relieved to find that none of that baggage from his possessions carried over. While they were fond of the sparkling bubbly, Xander Harris was in no way fond of liquor – the evidence to that lay in his former abode, and the parents that supposedly raised him.

It didn't however curb the urge for it sometimes, and Xander was struggling not to give into it so as not to lose hold on what little sanity he had left in that area. He certainly didn't want his new body abused in the way the merged personas had originally abused theirs.

The Tony Stark that became predominant within his head currently assisting him in his equations after all the noise had settled had demanded him to make use of the accidental gifts that came along with the baggage so as not to be useless. So with that in mind – literally – he started to break his own rules and distance himself from his friends so they wouldn't catch the fall-out of his new endeavors.

Hindsight was indeed twenty-twenty and he knew that somewhere down the road it will bite him on the ass. But for the paranoid genius part of his new psyche, he thankfully had contingencies over contingencies. If worse come to worse, he would tell them what he had been up too these last few weeks, but on terms of his choosing. But then again, nothing in the Hellmouth would always remain on an even course.

After he made a few adjustments to the armor designs slowly taking shape in the auto-cad, he shifted his attention from that to another screen which was computing metallurgical and chemical variables of what would soon be the alloy for the armor he was designing.

That is, if the mathematical equations would fit. Adamantium, was after all, the hardest to get right the first time using substandard parts and materials that were and weren't available in his reality. Hopefully, the algorithms and equations he fed to the poor machine assigned to that task would not fail him. And if it worked, he'd have to scrounge whatever materials he could find to make sure that becomes reality.

Once he was done checking on that one, he moved on to another computer that was busy searching for alternative power sources for this grand scheme in the making. Granted that most of the original Iron Men that possessed him used their cybernetic heart to power the damn suits, his heart was nowhere near that state thanks to his pathetic budget that night. So now he had to make do with something external to help power said suit if he ever got around to building it.

Glancing at the display that showed several hits regarding scientific papers on alternative power, he was disgusted to note that none of them even came close. And those that had the barest hint of potential took the starting size of the one powering the Hoover Dam. The rest were gagged and had needed top secret clearances, easy for him to hack into, but he'd rather not ruffle any feathers since he couldn't do anything about it right now. But that didn't stop his interest when he spotted a file buried so deep that the only thing he got out of it before he had to close that connection in fear of being found out were the initials S.G.C.

That meant that none of them on the mainstream publication came close to what he had in mind, unless he got creative and started messing with ZPE equations, and he didn't quite trust himself with that. Sighing, he noted that as an alternative possibility. Well, as a last resort anyway. He knew if he messed up on that one, he'd wipe a third of the United States of America off the face of the map if he made one slight miscalculation. But all the same, he stopped the search program and redirected it to start new computations and simulations as he fed the beginnings of the Zero-Point Energy equations into the machine and included Arc reactor feasibility given the current level of non-classified tech this world had to offer. That was probably his best bet thanks to some of the memories shuffling inside his crowded head.

He asked the computer to start with something big since he was working with substandard equipment. He shook his head; it will be a long while till he can find something that will help him refine something like that into the size of large D cell battery pack if he had the same stuff the original Tony Stark can play with back in his universe. As it was, he was never going to get off the ground the way he had wanted.

At least he was able to jury rig some almost "palm"-sized repulsor pistols, unfortunately, they each had only one charge apiece – the power source was a tweaked large D cell battery – so best used only in extreme emergencies and not miss. It was also, in his opinion, butt ugly. Having something looking like an old fashioned hair dryer as a weapon would get him laughed at.

At least I'll have the last laugh after I pull the trigger, he thought. None of the pistols had a lower setting, so whoever or whatever would be on the receiving end of the pistol would get the full brunt of the blast.

On a lighter note, one of the machines he had assigned to keep watch on world trends and stocks market updates was working like a dream. He had sunk everything he had from his road trip savings into one commodity and it was now reaping the benefits under an assumed name and corporation. He would have to sell his share soon and then move on and split his earnings to two more items he had his eyes on. It was slow, but if it panned out, he would be able to afford some of the more expensive equipment to further his goals.

Glancing at the large neon wall clock that would have been at home once in a sixties diner, he cursed as it was almost time to go to school. Shaking his head once more, he placed the whole system on standby monitor mode so as to conserve power while they still continued their preprogrammed duties; he headed for the shower to get ready for the day. He had enough time to swing by his old house and make it look like he still lived there. Changing in a fresh set of clothes he had prepared the night before, he jogged towards the door at a brisk pace while palming one of the repulsor pistols and shoved at least five fresh D cells into his backpack for extra ammo as he called out his usual standard exit command to the computer.

"Jarvis," he said, "Initiate security lockdown level five. See ya later!"

"Level five security lockdown engaged," the A.I said as he primed the warehouse defenses. "Have a nice day, Mr. Harris."

Ah, Xander thought as he settled into a nice jog into the morning sun, the joys of having "Just a Really Very Intelligent System" working for you once you had it up and running was priceless. Although the complete AI was lacking, he wasn't going to be picky with what he had. There would be time for that later on when he can upgrade his current style of living.

All that was missing now was a PA named Pepper. On that thought, a pang of sadness crossed his face as he neared his former home to keep up the ruse that he still lived there. Virginia "Pepper" Potts may have been fictional in this world; it didn't stop him from remembering the different variants of Pepper from his merged memories of just how integral she was to the life of a few of the Tony Starks running around in his skull.

Glancing around to make sure he wasn't being followed, he sneaked into his room on the upper floor to truly start the day.

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-- TBC? –

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I made a challenge a while back when the Iron Man movie first came out and after watching it for the second time i was plot-bunnied to try out my own challenge.

The challenge; can be found on tthfanfic:

www. tthfanfic. com/ Challenge- 3550 /Xander+Harris+The+Iron+Tauri.htm

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	2. Chapter 2

XANDER HARRIS: THE IRON TAU'RI

By:"Gunsmith3000"  
Started: 5-19-08

Completed: ??

Disclaimers: Nothing belongs to me other than this insane idea I have that just won't let go. Iron Man belongs to Marvel, Stargate SG1 belongs to Paramount. Buffy belongs to Joss.

Summary: Xander goes as one of his favorite marvel comic characters, but gets more than he's bargained for.

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"Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Knight?"

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To say that Xander was annoyed, was a gross understatement. To think the day began with lots of nice possibilities that were shot down the moment he entered school. He blamed it on the Hellmouth.  
And that was before he saw Cordelia Chase in class.

It took all he had not to scream and pull out his hair at the way Cordelia replied to the history teacher in regards to the anecdote on George Washington and his infamous apple tree.

He glared at the back of her head, wondering if she had been born a dysfunctional blond underneath her brunette tress. She must be doing this on purpose to get a reaction from everybody, he thought. That's the only possible answer, as he refused to believe that anyone could be that obtuse - or bent. He sighed in relief when the bell signalled the end to another dismal day and wasted no time from getting as much distance between himself and the reigning queen of Sunnydale High as he could.

Bad enough that his overdeveloped libido from the merging left him more than wanting to ogle the supposedly insane brunette, but he almost had the same reaction to any attractive female in range. The only thing that kept him from doing something that would have his head handed to him on a silver platter was the simple fact that everyone around him were jailbait. Unless of course it was Jenny Calendar.

Thank God for small favors, he thought.

"Wimp," Was the reply from the Tony Stark collective running the peanut gallery in his head.

He sighed, checked his watch and started walking back to his warehouse only to stop when he saw who waiting for him near the school entrance.

Buffy and Willow.

"Er, hello ladies!" he said and tried to sound nonchalant, unfortunately he twitched when someone at the back of his mental mind-scape wolf-whistled.

Make that all of them, he groaned.

Both girls shared a glance and smiled back at the confused young man.

"Xander," they began. "Where have you been these past few days?"

"Oh no," Xander said as he moved to get clear. "You two don't play the coy act on me. As for what I've been up to, I've been busy trying to catch up on school since it slacked a lot after I started on the slayage with you guys."

Buffy frowned, while that was true, Xander never usually avoided them on purpose. But after the Halloween incident, they had been seeing less and less of each other. And while she was glad that one of her friends tried to keep to the safe side of the fight, she still felt that she had to worry.

In spite of his admittance that nothing much happened to him during his possession, she still had doubts.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Buffy asked, and then she noticed how his clothes no longer hung awkwardly around his frame like it did before. And even though his choice of clothing still sported the Hawaiian motif, the prints weren't as loud as they had been before. The ones he habitually wore in the past had almost blinded even someone with Slayer abilities.

"Nice shirt by the way." She said.

"Uh thanks." Xander said in reply and fidgeted a little as his other best friend had yet to say anything. He looked into her face and blinked as he saw that she almost had literal heart-shapes in her eyes. He gulped and started to back away from the redhead when he started to notice she was almost close to taste.

"Well," he said backing away from the redhead with caution, wondering why he thought of her like a cat pouncing all of the sudden. In desperation, his mind tried to grab on to one excuse. "I really have to run, got myself a part time job to go to, too."

"Really?" both girls gasped in surprise.

"What sort of job would hire a high school student?" Willow asked as she spoke for the first time since both girls had cornered their only male friend below thirty.

"Oh nothing much," Xander said and tried to play it down. "He bought one of the warehouses closest to here to start up a company for research and development and needed a go-fer for stuff he normally doesn't have to bother with."

"That's nice, Xand." Buffy smiled, "Is he treating you ok? Is the pay ok? And is there an opening for more? And what's your boss's name?"

"Uh well, the pay is decent." Xander hedged at the slayer's interrogation and started to lie his ass off. "He's usually out of town on country-hopping trips, so I'm more or less the caretaker of the place. His name is Jarvis, and no I don't think he's hiring anyone right now until he gets set up. And yes, I have seen him in daylight and eating human food." The last one was said for Buffy's benefit in regards to her unspoken profession as a Slayer.

"All right girls," he said and made a show of looking at his Mickey Mouse watch. "Have to go, bye!"

Then he moved forwards, and kissed each girl on the cheek. Xander was mortified when he realized that the kiss was dangerously close to their lips. He blushed beet red, and bolted. Too bad he wasn't able to outrun the series of guffaws that echoed in his mind-scape all the way home.

He felt that he needed a very stiff drink.

Ack, NO! -- A cold shower, definitely needed a cold shower, and then get to working on some experiments while loud rock music blasted his eardrums off his

skull.

But with NO alcoholic beverage involved.

Ever.

I'm doomed, he thought as the peanut gallery in the back of his head laughed louder while they clinked imaginary champagne glasses and downed them in one gulp.

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After he finally recovered from his recent lapse of sanity, he had ZZ-Top playing in the background and he tinkered with one of his more recent electronic additions in the warehouse. He had taken apart some old projectors and some infrared lasers and then reassembled them to point from top to bottom facing each other inside a large cage that suspended the whole contraption. It was wide enough for him to walk through. He also made sure to weld the whole prototype cage so it won't fall on top of him.

Once he was satisfied that the whole thing was sturdy, he connected the main cables to the Cray unit and flicked on the switch inside the cage. A series of lights winked on and the whole array bathed him in illumination the moment he stepped in and donned some tight fitting gloves that had silver lining on the end of each digits.

"All right," Xander said in triumph. "Jarvis, initiate grid processing on my mark, power up for twenty five percent."

"Initiating." The A.I. intoned, the infrared lasers changed spectrum as the projectors above and below him formed solid lights that surrounded him briefly before dimming to an acceptable level so as not to destroy regular human level eyesight.

"Mark!" he said, and watched in glee as a holographic flat monitor and transparent keyboard appeared and floated before him. He began typing on the holographic keypad and was more than pleased to see that they registered as solid when the gloves came in contact.

"Up the power to fifty percent." Xander called out as he took off the gloves and started testing the holographic surface for actual skin contact. Pleased to note that they were solid as the A.I. complied, he ran a normal Windows type browser and surfed the web when all the sudden one of the projectors above his head popped. Then finally, after all that, the power blew. The warehouse was plunged into darkness when the last of the main fuses died. Two seconds later, the backups he installed kicked in.

"Well shit," the young genius groaned. He took the whole system off the Cray in disgust until he was able to come up with a better power source. "There goes my electricity bill."

Once he got the power back to normal; he straddled the chair in front of the machine that was doing the ZPE and Arc equations and simulations to check up on its progress. He was slightly mollified that at least the system was making good in its assigned task.

From the readouts, Arc technology is indeed feasible with the use of current tech. The size of the reactor concerned him a bit, while not overly large, it was still big enough to be the size of a family van.

He picked through the list of possible places to acquire said materials the machine had found and was pleased to note that some of them were in the immediate area. One of them was actually in the former CRD compound while the others can be bought from various sources.

The main part however was inside the Sunnydale Military depot.

He frowned again as he wondered why the depot showed the components of a disassembled tactical warhead hidden amongst its manifest. Maybe somebody made an error of gross proportions or this was intentional, he didn't want to know, but the fact it was there worried him more than making the reactor. If SHIELD was around in this reality, he would have thought that this would be their last ditch effort in case the Hellmouth would open.

If someone higher up does have an idea about the goings on in Sunnydale, then why haven't they sent in some help? The components would be useless to them later on though, he needed those parts. He started ordering the rest of the materials that were easily available with his stock earnings while he would leave the one inside the depot for last.

With that out of the way, he dismantled parts of the holo-projector he was working on and started working on a stealth generator.

One way or another, he needed those parts, so he would have to lift them off the base itself.

Besides, it's not like he could steal some radioactive isotopes from broke Libyans running across the border while trying to help them enact vengeance against the authorities, now could he? He had more class than that.

Though he shuddered to think what would have happened if had went out as Doc Brown on Halloween. He touched his full head of hair and shuddered again. He really didn't want to spend the rest of his life with hair that looked like he'd been electrocuted fifty ways from Sunday.

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A blurred, barely discernable form ghosted past the dozing sentry that guarded the gates of the depot later that night, stopping only to carefully wedge itself through the slightly ajar gate and headed for building it wanted. With agonizing slowness, it opened the door and let itself in and locked the door once it was fully inside.

Coming out of stealth was a bizarrely garbed Alexander Harris dressed in a black tight-fitting scuba wetsuit, wearing a harness made out of projectors and electronic jammers. It would have looked ridiculous to anyone that saw him if not for the fact that the damned thing worked. On his back was a large knapsack for this mission. He took off the harness that held the stealth generator for the duration and set it aside. He retrieved a copy of the room map from the knapsack's left side pocket, along with the manifest for said depot that he had hacked into and began rooting through the crates for the parts he needed with the utmost care as to not make a sound.

As he was almost finished rooting through the last crate which held the micro-circuit board for the guidance system, he caught something peeking out from below the crate packing material. Upon closer inspection, he noticed it had an odd purplish color. After stuffing the board into one of the knapsack's protected pockets, he leaned in and brought the object of his curiosity out.

It was slightly bulky in appearance and it resembled a squished letter Z or S from the side. Examining the object, he noted a button on the side and depressed it, and nearly dropped it as it became live and took the position of a standard letter Z configuration.

The engineer in him immediately recognized a weapon when he saw one; however he also noted the design was nothing close to what a human would have in mind. Glancing back into the crate, he saw a few of them in there and also noted that a few of them had been taken apart and placed into separate containers. His curiosity getting the better of him at the moment, he lifted a couple of them for his own testing and stuffed them into the knapsack.

Since these babies weren't even included in the manifest at all, he knew without a doubt that they would be hush-hush about it missing a few.

Once he was done with his illegal shopping spree, he made sure to make everything look back the way it was before he even stepped foot in the room. That done, he donned the harness again and activated his bulky as hell stealth camouflage then made his way out of the depot with exaggerated caution.

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It wasn't until the next day when he came back from school that he found out that the strange weapon he had acquired as a bonus from the depot was never made by human hands after hours of analyzing and testing it.

In fact, it was never manufactured on Earth.

The shock was enough to make him forget all about what that disassembled warhead was doing in Sunnydale in the first place.

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-- To Be Continued –

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	3. Chapter 3

XANDER HARRIS: THE IRON TAU'RI  
By:"Gunsmith3000"  
Started 5-19-08  
Completed: ??

Disclaimers: Nothing belongs to me other than this insane idea I have that just won't let go. Iron Man belongs to Marvel, Stargate SG1 belongs to Paramount. Buffy belongs to Joss.

Summary: Xander goes as one of his favorite marvel comic characters, but gets more than he's bargained for.

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"Taking Baby Steps Forward"

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Alien.

As in out of this world alien…

As in really mind-numbingly out of this geek-o-rama-wet-dream of sci-fi and into the real world, alien…

He couldn't help but stare at the thing; but it was hard to disprove of that fact as all the parts were laid out in 3D technicolour on top of one of his work desks with the supplemental readouts from the testing and analysis he had done sitting on the monitor to his right.

The entire collective inside his head had shut down in shock.

After a few untold minutes he shook himself out of the funk he found himself in. Once the strange weapon was revealed as being of extraterrestrial in origin, new theories pounded themselves into his head at terminal velocity. A shark-like grin graced his face at the new possibilities with what he could do with it piled up.

Amazingly, he managed to suppress the urge to cackle insanely.

If Earth was dealing in alien tech, then he would have to find out if the aliens themselves were either beneficial, neutral, or hostile. Since he had no answer to any of that, the only way to find that out was to crack certain classified government databases. For that to work, he'd better fast track his projects into the next level once he got the arc reactor up and running so he can build himself a better AI to be his hacking wingman.

And if some of the aliens the Earth had been dealing with were hostile, there would be a very heavy need for the armor. He glanced back to one of the alien weapons not being tested and took more notes into his current mainframe. While surprisingly advanced, it also looked old. The design reminded him of some of the pre-Shi'ar type civilizations.

The power source of the alien gun also gave him a third alternative solution to his current dilemma, but if he were to shoot the designs into patents, the government would no doubt realize as to where he based the new power source from and be all over him faster than white on rice. It also didn't help that some of the materials the alien gun had could not be found on Earth.

No, he was better off with his own Arc technology while he looking for a way create something similar with Earth-based materials like that into his Iron tech armor as a back up system. Better to play it safe, he thought. Deciding that he needed more info before doing anything else, he closed the file and locked it into his private server . He already planned on being Iron Man to help his friends. Thanks to the new influx of information that came to light, he would be helping to protect the planet from bad demons and bad aliens then.

As sleep started claiming him, he closed up for the night and he went to his room in the warehouse to crash for a few hours. The following weeks were going to be busy once the parts for the reactor start coming in, until then, he would have to wait.

And that was the worst thing.

The waiting…

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As the weeks rolled by, he tried his best to divide his time equally between his friends, his projects, and his schooling. Once he got the reactor up, he made it so he can manually move it with his future armor in case he had to relocate if his current base of operation would go up in smoke.

During that time, his stock options became diversified, so he branched out into more avenues of interest. With his newfound capital, he started buying and refining most of his tech while getting rid of the some of the junk he had cobbled up in the beginning. And as luck would have it, the new OS he created when he first started was picking up. He bought the condemned CRD site and hired, through an outside source, a construction firm and had them reconstruct the place to his specifications while he shopped online for a site somewhere in California for the up and coming corporation he would set up some time in the very near future. All under a dummy corporation as a stepping stone since no one would take orders from a teenaged genius no matter how smart they had become.

But then again, it was all the same no matter where you go or what universe you were in. The system known as "Money talks, bullshit walks" is still constant.

He took the current AI down for added rewrites once the new replacement Cray he built came online and upgraded it to a point where it was almost sentient enough for his liking so he can start his own investigation into the alien tech he had first discovered. It was slow, but he could tell that everything he did was going in the direction that he wanted them to go to in the first place.

During that time, he played it cool with certain events changed in his friend's group dynamics with whatever the Hellmouth threw at them. Though it was a bit strange from one of his memory's point of view as some things didn't look the way it did when one of the Tony Starks that possessed him saw the Buffy TV series, but somehow they managed to survive with little input and intervention from him. He knew some events had to stay the way they were but all the same, he made certain hints to keep them from staying true to the series his Stark memory had watched and he made some alterations when he saw fit.

He managed to resolve some of the stuff that weren't really touched upon too much in the series according to one of the memories of one of the Stark variants. While he tried not to change them too much, he made changes anyway even if it wasn't intentional. Take the incident the Ted, after the fiasco with the psychotic robot, he was able to take note of the tech behind the not-so-human boyfriend of the Slayer's mother after said Slayer decommissioned the walking toaster. He even thought to create one as an avatar for his AI that wasn't as bent as Ted was. Of course he couldn't use the tech he found in the idiot machine's basement as that was part of the evidence that may never see the light of a court room; he would have to build one of his own later on.

And while he had the memories of the Iron Sorcerer Supreme variant running around his skull, he had little to no power within him. But that could be easily circumvented if he concentrated on making an Iron Magus version of the armor. Oh, given time, he could be a magus adept with the right training due his knowledge of that universe's arcane hero, but he had enough on his plate right now and had no plans for the immediate future in that regard.

Although not having that much power in that area, it didn't stop him from trying to make sure some of the maligned people like Amy understood that power was never used for trivial pursuits. He was able to have a talk with the girl and used enough examples for her to realize that she would have to change unless she wanted to be the cause of another rise in a literal witch hunt in the late twentieth century.

The adage "With great power, must come great responsibility" wasn't as corny as can be in that regard, and he tried to get that through the young woman. Not that it got him very far as Amy was still trying to process what he had said earlier. He could only hope she wouldn't do anything stupid down the road like the TV series suggested. It would be a shame to have her eliminated because she was the one who finally pushed the envelope in the future Willow's addiction to the wrong sort of magic.

The biggest surprise for him by far was when he stumbled into Jenny Calendar's true identity while doing a random background search with the newly upgraded Jarvis even after the fact that he already knew who she was through the alternate memories. Her past was only mentioned in passing in the series, but to actually find out more of it that stretched out even further to old world history was astonishing. If he read it right, she was a true Romany royalty in hiding and her father was the current king on the run.

He tried to keep all of that under wraps, unfortunately, her conscience thought better and she confessed to the group for reasons unknown, he didn't want to make them too suspicious as to where he was getting foreknowledge but it was hard on some days where he knew he can do some good. He'd already basically admitted to the rise in his intellect to the group a few days earlier before she had her own confession when they found him doodling long division equations one day in the library out of boredom when he wasn't watching what he was doing. They were sort of mad at first, but when he told them (with great Oscar-wining acting) that he really thought of Willow first and that he didn't want to lose his friendship with her just because the possession jumpstarted his inner brainiac. And that he was just keeping it on the down low as to not take away the only thing that made Willow, well, Willow.

They finally accepted him after he'd danced the Scooby Dance for the umpteenth time and left it at that. Besides, Buffy was already currently mad enough at Miss Calendar, so no more fuel needed to be added to the fire. He didn't even want to remember how much of an ass Giles had become after that little revelation.

They would probably have had a coronary if they knew just how truly smart he was, the geek-gasm alone coupled with the aneurysm Willow would have gotten had she taken one look at his workshop would bury him into the next millennium.

The only time he'd need to really step in for now was when the demon known as the Judge was reassembled and the old moron started its old habits again… i.e. wanting to rid everything of humanity.

No weapon forged by man, huh? We'll see about that, he thought.

-0-0-0-0-0-

When the day came that The Judge was back, the old demon sang a different tune when Xander snuck into the warehouse Spike and Dru used as a hideout under an improved and less bulky stealth suit and gave him a full lobotomy as energy burst from the alien weapon at an insane rate of fire. He smiled in satisfaction as he set it to vaporize the remains that were left. He had learned to "tweak" the alien gun further the moment he took it apart and reassembled it the first time.

The weapon was just as good as his current repulsor pistols; but it was much too high in profile if the government already realized that some of it were missing. At least now the repulsor pistols were no longer dependent on D cell batteries as he created a homebrew variation on the power source the alien gun had.

The added bonus of Spike and Dru running away like ants on steroids kept him laughing as much as the parting shot from Dru as she ranted about an Iron Legion among one of many as one when they peeled rubber from Spike's DeSoto on their way out of town.

Iron Legion indeed.

Not a bad ring to it though.

"Shit," he cursed as he suddenly realized he'd have to keep Miss Calendar alive in case Buffy already jumped Angel's bones in the biblical sense. He hurriedly switched the stealth suit off to conserve power and ran as fast as he could with an extra fifteen pounds of gear on him towards the princess-in-hiding's apartment.

He wasn't sure of the time frame in regards to her death, but he had to get to her, as in, NOW.

He summoned every bit of energy enhanced body he can muster and double-timed it to Jenny's house in less than ten minutes. Only when he got to her door and pounded like mad that he realized that he had no idea what to say to her.

So it confused them both when the first thing that came out of his mouth when she pulled the door open as her her tear-streaked face came into view was:

"Would you like a job? I've got great health and dental plan benefits."

Unfortunately, he twitched when he got a good look at her.

Of course, that was when the peanut gallery inside his head started ogling the teacher's svelte form underneath the flimsy, revealing bathrobe that she was wearing.

Um, wow!

Good God!

Hello Nurse!

And from the look on her face when her left eye suddenly developed a severe tic; he figured too late that he must've said that last part out loud.

The sound of a hand slapping someone's face cemented that fact further before he was dragged bodily inside her abode and the door slammed shut behind them.

-0-0-0-0-0-

The two drunken vampires that had started following the strangely dressed teen a few blocks back shared a look as the teen in question was hauled inside the woman's apartment.

"See that, Biggs?" The taller one of them said as they walked away from the building. "That's a perfect example of why you shouldn't piss off a woman by making her wait like that."

"Poor guy," The shorter one slurred in agreement. "Let's go home, Wedge."

"I tink not." a Jamaican accent intoned from the darkness as the short figure leaped out and staked both vampires with preternatural speed.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-

-- To Be Continued --

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-


	4. Chapter 4

XANDER HARRIS: THE IRON TAU'RI  
By:"Gunsmith3000"  
Started 5-19-08  
Completed: ??

Disclaimers: Nothing belongs to me other than this insane idea I have that just won't let go. Iron Man belongs to Marvel, Stargate SG1 belongs to Paramount. Buffy belongs to Joss.

Summary: Xander goes as one of his favorite marvel comic characters, but gets more than he's bargained for.

-0-0-0-0-0-

"The Talk"

-0-0-0-0-0-

"Okay, I probably deserved that." He said the moment the door slammed shut behind them.

"You think?" she replied heatedly.

Xander rubbed the side of his face as the red hand print that marred it started to fade, he looked around the living room of his teacher's apartment, noticing the decor the the first time.

Kinda messy, he thought, but what the hell is that sweet smell? He took an even longer sniff and found the object of the scent on the long table in front of the sofa.

It was Vodka. A very expensive bottle of vodka that you wouldn't normally find in the cheap liquor stores. And it was already open and it's contents had been lessened by half.

At the sight of alcohol, he started doing long division equations in his head at light speed in order to steer himself away from the bottle that was beckoning him.

"You're drinking?" he asked to the only other occupant in the house. "Why are you drinking?"

"You have a problem with women drinking?" she asked, then leaned dangerously close to his personal space, still slightly ticked off about his earlier comment.

The scent of the sexy woman before him mixed with alcohol and tears with a glimpse of cleavage so close to taste sent his mind reeling.

The long divisions in his head switched to ZPE formulas, and one of the nerdier Starks inside his mind was screaming that he was running out of black board space.

A traitorous few in the peanut gallery were in front of a karaoke machine singing: "And here's to you Mrs. Robinson, Jesus loves you more than you will know… oh-oh-oh…"

"What do you want anyway?" Jenny asked as she moved away from him to sit on the sofa to pour another glass, then emptied it in one gulp.

The young genius barely managed to hide a full body shiver when the already short bathrobe she wore revealed a very generous slit with the way she sat down. He measured it in inches as it almost reached up her mid-thigh.

The karaoke Starks in his mind began dancing to a reggae version of the same song and started a conga line.

"Well," he said as he licked suddenly dry lips. "I was serious about the job offer I mentioned, I just didn't think I would get to that so soon."

The woman wiped her tears on the long sleeves and stared at the young man, and noticed that he was oddly dressed.

He wore some tight-fitting rubber-like black body stocking that she could have sworn that it must have been spandex because it showcased some rather impressive set of muscles, not too big, not too small -- just perfect. Around his waist was a very bulky belt that looked more at home in a Batman movie, with the ornate looking buckle the blinked on and off from time to time. And she noticed strange looking ray gun was clipped to his right hip, completing the ensemble.

"What's with the cosplay costume?" she said as she stifled a giggle at the sight, though a part of her wanted to see if those muscles were real. "Was there a sci-fi convention in town I didn't know about?"

"Well, well, Miss Calendar." Xander said, surprised at her question. "I didn't know you were a closet sci-fi geek."

She shrugged. "A girl can't always be all about sewing and dolls, Xander. Come sit; now tell me about the job thing. Aren't you too young to even be having one, let alone own one?"

He nodded and sat down near her, but not without making sure he was at a respectable distance so as not to invade her personal space despite the fact that the karaoke Starks in the peanut gallery were salivating at the sight of the well-toned legs that she obviously sported.

He took a deep breath as he centered himself, the peanut gallery in his head settled down as well. After he took several deep breaths, he told her the unabridged version of his watered-down confession that he told to his friends. He still left out a few pertinent facts of course, like the foreknowledge of what might come to pass in this reality.

Her eyes grew wide and she sobered up enough as his story grew. He really was serious about the job; and he really did check her background thoroughly and knew that she had the capabilities he was looking for. And while she was kind sore about being checked up on in that manner, she understood where he was coming from.

She was also amazed when he said that the costume he was wearing really wasn't a costume at all, but a very sophisticated personal stealth camouflage gear that he had put together.

"So let me get this straight." She said, as she thought about the possibilities and forgetting her problem for the meantime. "You're trying to create a company to make use of the stuff the Stark memories crammed into your head since Halloween, but you're too young and at this point you need a figurehead to run the day to day concerns as well as introduce your technology into the mass market one small piece at a time, am I right?"

"Indeed you are, Miss Kalderash." He replied, and used her real surname to show that he wasn't joking.

"Don't be too free with my real surname, Mr. Harris." She said with eyes narrowed. "I haven't decided anything yet after all the hell I have been through the last few days."

"Speaking of which," Xander switched topics. "What seemed to be the problem? Granted that outing yourself wasn't the stellar move you'd envisioned, but that was a few days ago. So unless whatever you're going through is related to that somehow, I wouldn't have any idea for anything else that might mar that beautiful face of yours with tears."

She blushed at the not-so subtle comment, taking a drink to hide the flustered look. "My father called and he was very upset about how I handled things here. I wasn't supposed to get close to you guys at all and just keep watch on Angel. But I fell for Rupert and then saw how they accepted your twisted confession in regards to getting smart, I just thought I would have that same chance. I just thought you guys deserved to know the truth."

She looked down as fresh tears started to fall. "And you saw how well that turned out. I tried to explain to Rupert after you all left, but he dismissed me with such finality that it hurt. So now, the clan is sending someone else to do my duty, and I am to return home immediately. But since I have a contract with the school and have my own wish to see this through, I told them I would go home as soon as the semester closes."

She felt a hand reach for her chin as Xander lifted her head up to meet his eyes.

"I understand," Xander said, and he really did. "But I also think it would be a shame for you to leave after all this is done. Just think of my offer as a better alternative than a life living only for revenge. I've read up on you, you know."

She cocked her head to one side, just wondering how much information Xander was able to get on her. The young man took that as a sign to continue.

"You're way too overqualified for a simple computer teaching position." Xander said, "You have a few MBA's at a young age to your credit. Economics, Business, enough to make that the salary you're getting from the Sunnydale School District woefully inadequate."

She stared at him, shock on her face as he said the next thing.

"You also have this penchant for hacking into the most challenging places with the use of technology and magic." He continued. "A true techno-pagan with the power to back it up, and that's not all. I dug further and found that amongst your many accomplishments, was a Masters in Computer Sciences. Not to mention earning top place in the hacker community alongside Willow."

He snorted as he stood up and walked around the living room. "Those credentials alone can give you a CEO's salary and yet here you are, doing your duty to your clan's single-minded obsession with misguided revenge."

"It is an HONOR to serve the will of the clan of Kalderash!" she said with steel in her voice.

"That's the company line, honey." Xander shot back as Stark's boardroom attitude came to the forefront of his psyche. "You said it yourself, in revenge against the demon Angelus; your people stuck a soul – while not that completely innocent – into a demon-infested corpse to make them both suffer. Not even giving a second thought to the soul that was kicked out if its original body when he got vamped in the first place."

"Well it was the soul of Liam that couldn't keep his hormones in his pants that turned him into a vampire in the first place." She stood up and almost shouted. "It's his fault that the demon killed my ancestor, if he wasn't turned then this wouldn't have to happen."

"Well thanks to your clan," Xander said, and dropped the bomb. "You people might get a chance to see Angelus again. If your people wanted complete revenge, you should have gotten rid of that clause!"

"What?" that stopped what she was about to say as that comment derailed her thoughts.

"Think!" Xander growled, "What's the best, most primal thing to a guy to be able to get him a piece of total happiness? And believe me, it's not a late night poker game."

"Uh, sex?" She said in disgust.

"Not really all that," Xander sighed as he sat on the couch. "That's only a part of it. Physical gratification is easy because that's part of the result."

"Then what's the rest of it?" Jenny sat down beside him as she considered the words of the surprisingly mature-sounding teen before her, never mind the fact that he really was an adult both inside and outside now thanks to the changes the possessions left him.

"The complete and total love and acceptance of who and what he is from the person he most cherishes." The genius replied.

"Buffy." Jenny had hit the nail right on the head in horror.

"Exactly, you get a cookie." He said, chuckling at the scowl she gave him. "Give them enough time and it'll happen sooner than later. And if he gets loose, we need to get the big bad genie back into his proverbial bottle. It that doesn't work, I have no qualms in killing him no matter how precious he is to Buffy. The fact of the matter is: your people should have dusted him in the first place instead of doing something that made no sense. "

Jenny stood up and went to the bookshelf, took out a heavy, ancient looking tome and pulled out a piece of parchment stuck between the middle and brought it with her as she sat back beside him and refilled her glass and took a swig from it.

"From what I was able to find," she said as she handed over the parchment with faded writing. "This is a close copy of the original spell they had used."

Xander stared at the leathery paper, the words looked familiar to him thanks to the Iron Sorcerer Supreme memories, but he had to be sure. "What language is this in?"

"It's in the original Romany dialect used in the olden days." She replied, "If what you said is true, we need to have this translated as soon as we can."

"I've got software to do that," he hedged, "Though if Angel or his Mr. Hyde gets wind of this thanks to your confession, you know he'll go after you with everything he's got."

"It's a risk I am willing to take." She said with fatalistic conviction.

"That's stupid," Xander muttered. He mulled things over in his head with the peanut gallery as they weighed the risks before they all settled on unanimous decision.

"Accept my job offer," he said suddenly. "Quit your teaching position and move in with me until this thing is translated. That way we can kill two birds with one stone, you get the time and resources to translate this and I get to teach you the ins and outs of the company I want to set up. The warehouse where I live is big enough to accommodate the two of us and I can have an apartment installed there bigger than the one you have at the moment and you'll be protected. And you can also probably add some wards to it while you're there, too."

"Some ladies need be proposed to first before you ask them to move in with you, genius." Jenny said with a leer, her smile turned into a smirk at his suggestion, she leaned forward a little to reach the glass and took another drink.

"And I still haven't said yes, you know, in regards to your offer."

Xander reddened as he saw a great deal of cleavage from the way she reached for her glass, the karaoke Starks in his head started up again with gusto when they all noticed that she wasn't wearing a bra.

"You're too tense," she said, then offered him a drink from her glass. "Here, have a drink and loosen up some."

"But I…" He began.

"Please?" she said, her voice turning husky as her sobriety slowly vanished, "For me?"

She's so pretty, he thought as his resolve crumbled when he got another whiff of the almighty nectar.

His last thought before he joined here was, "What the hell was Giles thinking?"

-0-0-0-0-0-

Somewhere else:

"Sir," A voice spoke into a red phone. "We have a security breach."

-0-0-0-0-0-

The next day…

Janna woke up feeling satisfied and sore all over in a good way. She also had the familiar weird buzz in her head that was the usual evidence of a hangover that came from binging the night before. With eyes still closed, she stretched her body out in guilty pleasure as she tried to smother herself back to sleep on top of the warm, yet strangely hard pillow that she was laid on.

After dozing off for a few minutes, her eyes flew open as the memories from last night hit her like a runaway freight train. Unable to stop a full body blush, she turned to the pillow and saw the masculine line of rock hard abs leading up to a chiseled chest; then she let her eyes roam all the way up and spotted the slightly snoring head of Xander Harris.

"Oh my God." She said as her body blush went up a notch and turned her into the color of a ripe tomato.

She could tell that they were both naked with only the sheets as a cover.

As if of its own accord, her head swiveled downwards from where she stared at his abs.

"Oh! My! God!"

A cough made her head snap back the other direction, enough to give her whiplash.

"Good Morning Nurse?"

WHAP! was her reply.

"You'll still take the job, though, right?" asked Xander in a nervous voice, the left side of his face was again covered with a red hand print.

-0-0-0-0-0-

-- To Be Continued --

-0-0-0-0-0-


	5. Chapter 5

XANDER HARRIS: THE IRON TAU'RI  
By:"Gunsmith3000"  
Started 5-19-08  
Completed: ??

Disclaimers: Nothing belongs to me other than this insane idea I have that just won't let go. Iron Man belongs to Marvel, Stargate SG1 belongs to Paramount.

Summary: Xander goes as one of his favorite marvel comic characters, but gets more than he's bargained for.

-0-0-0-0-0-

"Dart Board Confessional"

-0-0-0-0-0-

"The US Army did what?" Jack asked; his face unreadable and taut. "And when did the NID come in?"

By then, since the conference was already turned out more bad news one after another, the Colonel's hands underneath the table were clenched halfway as he imagined strangling Kinsey and Maybourne in more ways than one.

For some reason, he had a hunch they were involved in this somehow, and that it was all their fault.

"Actually," His superior said, "Everyone shares the blame this time around."

"How is that possible?" Samantha Carter queried while she read through the one page summary that did not fit the current mess that landed into their lap.

"Some of the Zats were sent to a classified location for testing for an approved project," the General began; he discreetly looked pointedly at Jack. "A few of them vanished two weeks after they arrived."

"How many were missing?" Jack asked as a sinking feeling came over him.

Thinking of ways to make himself feel better, the strangling motions his hands were making underneath the desk changed to mimic someone shoving a grenade burger into the mouth of his imaginary prey.

General Hammond took up the remote for the wall viewer and opened up a ready video showing the insides of an army depot on pause.

"Four," The General replied, "For security purposes, according to them, they didn't include the zats in the manifest while in transit. The only time it was recorded was at the beginning of transport and at the designated destination. That was why the investigation took so long. The strange thing about it is that when the investigative team requested each base with surveillance units to come forward and give us anything that may have looked out of the ordinary, we found this on one of the stops that raised the heckles on everyone's necks concerning the nature of the project it was headed for."

Hammond pointed at the wall-mounted video screen and hit play.

The video showed the door of the depot open and then close as if of its own accord. For a second an almost silent sound was heard on screen as the picture froze for several minutes, and when it unfroze, the door was opening again, but this time the video was manipulated to zoom in on the space between the door, a quick pause and slow frame advance from the General showed a barely discernable blur inching its way out of the depot.

"What is THAT?" Carter asked for all of them, her eyes wide as she shared a glance with her team mates, all of them knowing that some of the aliens that they have encountered in their travels can do exactly that.

"Our analysts don't know." General Hammond replied. "But that surveillance video was shot at the Sunnydale Armory depot. And that's where you're going."

"Sunnydale?" Samantha Carter asked again, "Isn't that the place that where a new company wrote the new OS we ordered for the SGC? From what I heard, an up and coming company called Paladin Core Industries put out an OS that surprised our programmers with its efficiency and advanced security algorithm that was miles above what the best Microsoft and Apple can supply the government. I even heard that they were planning to place it on the open market once their corporate headquarters in L.A. is finished. If they do, then they will slowly push Microsoft and Apple out by this year's end."

"That's true." The General said as he shut the video off. "As it is, the entire base is now being trained in its use as the PalCore System is ten times faster and more foolproof than anything we have at the moment, and best of all, the programmers said that all changes to the system can be monitored on site via the Core package that the company provided for us to make our own changes to the program to suit our needs."

"That's right," Sam agreed. "From what I've seen, it interfaces well with the older systems without a fuss but is totally secure from outside interference."

"Any chance we can get hacked?" Jack inquired.

"From what I've seen so far, no," She replied, "That's why they recommended it to us, the changes alone that we can make to the system makes it completely unique from any other operating system to date. Even if the company itself were to try to breach our security, it wouldn't even get past the firewall that we ourselves changed the moment that system went online inside the base mainframe. That's why it's so good, it's based completely on user controlled customization, if they don't have a copy of our security codes and how we changed the setup they'll never get in."

Jack shook his head at his 2IC; her enthusiasm was up full blast today. "Then you and Daniel are going to Sunnydale check up on that base while Teal'c and I'll head to Los Angeles and will liaise with head office there as the team that delivered the stuff to Sunnydale is based there."

"Why am I going with Sam?" Daniel asked, speaking for the first time since the conference had started.

"Because if that blur is one of ours, like say; the Nox, or the Tollan," Jack answered, "Then you're the best bet we have in case that thing is chatty."

"Oh."

"All right," Hammond said as he stood, closing the meeting. "Jack, I'd like to see you for a minute. Everyone else, you have your assignments to get ready for. You all leave at 0800 tomorrow, dismissed."

-0-0-0-0-0-

The first thing Hammond said as the two sat down in his office was an apology, a fact that surprised Jack O'Neill due to the very nature of the project that was compromised.

"I'm sorry, Jack." He began, "I know that you wanted to keep the Initiative project out of NID hands but since the screw up happened under Berber's command in California, Kinsey managed to get the joint chiefs and the president behind him on this one once the project came to light. Your involvement in the initial stage of the project's development, were withheld by those same higher ups. Though it was speculated that there might have been a mole, we don't know for sure."

Jack shrugged; just glad that Kinsey and company didn't get wind that it was his baby all along, but still, he was annoyed as hell that they got their claws into it anyway. After this little tête-à-tête with George, he was heading to the gym for some stress relief – preferably with a punching bag with Kinsey's picture draped over it.

"Nothing much escapes you during deep cover black op runs, if it hadn't been for Charlie and then the Stargate program," he said, "I would have been doing that instead of this. I'm just surprised that you got clearance for it, though."

"I know, I was cleared for it by the president against the joint chiefs' better judgment and got briefed on what the project was for and who was the first to have come up with it" Hammond said, "At first I thought they were joking, but once they started to give me intel on what else was out there and how you were involved, I was shocked to say the least, but I'm glad it was you who thought about it in the first place."

The two sat in companionable silence as they each thought about that one, then with a nod, the General dismissed the Colonel after another lengthy discussion.

"Oh, Jack, off the record." Hammond called out to the Colonel's retreating back as he opened the door, knowing exactly where the man was going given the way he was making a taut face in the conference room. "Be sure to take Kinsey's picture off the punching bag when you're done this time."

As the door was about to close, Jack heard the General call out again. "And that includes the ones you hid in the gunnery range for target practice, Colonel!"

"Should've gotten out of there faster," The Colonel thought with a wince. At least Hammond didn't notice the customized flip-style dart board with Kinsey's face printed on the back that was also in the gym and the extra one he kept inside his room.

"One could only hope that the NID won't screw up the Initiative Project." He thought as he entered the gym and changed for a workout.

Aw hell, who was he kidding? It's Kinsey for crying out loud!

The battered portrait of Sen. Robert Kinsey taped to the punching bag never saw the right hook coming.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Willow sat alone in the Library, having arrived earlier than her usual "early time" for school. She hadn't had a good night's sleep since after suffering from two shocks to the system concerning two of the closest friends she had in her life in the past week. While she understood how upset Buffy was over Miss Calendar's confession, the one that rang in her head constantly was the one that Xander confessed to days prior to the teacher's own confession.

As she sat down on the seat normally occupied by Xander, she thought back to the day they found out about how the Halloween spell really affected him…..

-0-0-0-0-0-

They had just come back to talk about the latest angst-fest Buffy was going on with Angel with Giles and Jenny in tow when they noticed Xander looking bored and doodling on the open notepad in front of him. Thinking that they would be the usual comic characters he drew from time to time, they were stunned at what they saw on the paper. Even Willow barely recognized the complex mathematical equations that were written down on the pad.

"Xander!" She screeched as the young man nearly jumped a foot out of the seat, his face red as he was completely unaware of their entrance and subsequent peeking over his shoulder while he was lost in the myriad equations.

"Well," Xander said, as they stared at him like he was some sort of alien, or demon, the Slayer's face showing a look of surprise similar to Willow's. "Let's face it; this isn't the first time you caught me doing something weird."

The two adults behind them were just watching in silence.

"But math?" She exclaimed, the pitch of her voice rose until it reached the high notes. "You and math get along just as much as a rash gets along with perfect skin! You hate math, and you sleep in that class!"

"It was Halloween, wasn't it?" Buffy stated as she confirmed her suspicions. "Why didn't you tell us that some of the memories stayed? Why did you lie?"

"And what would you have done?" Xander said, not directly answering her question. "Exorcise my newfound interest in the subject? So what if I got a little smarter? Though I do admit I thought I was going crazy because the numbers started making sense now. I was more afraid of how Willow would turn out if she found out."

"What do you mean?" Giles asked.

"Look," Xander said, "Willow's the best and smartest student Sunnydale High has ever had, right?"

Willow blushed at Xander's praise, while the others only nodded in agreement.

"And she prides herself in being the best in what she does." The young man continued, "Ever since we were kids, she was always picked upon and stuff. When she found out she was actually good at something that no one can take away from her, she did her best to excel at it."

"And you feel that getting the intellectual aptitude byproduct of the person who possessed you would make her feel that she was no longer the best that she was?" Jenny theorized.

"Not only that," Xander affirmed. "But think of how everyone will react if they found out some nobody like me can probably outdo her. They'll tear her to shreds, and that's a worst case scenario. I can't do that to her. I don't want to lose the only best friend I have left from my childhood now that Jesse was gone. So that's why I decided to keep it to myself."

"Xander," Giles said as he put his two cents in. "While your intentions were admirable, we at least have the right to know. Even if the truth were to hurt, the lies that would grow from hiding it will make it much worse."

No one saw that Jenny backed up a bit from where she was leaning, suddenly pale when she heard those words; her own thoughts in turmoil over what Giles had said.

They were just too busy with being there for Xander to notice.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Willow smiled as she traced the back of the chair where Xander sat with fondness, still touched by the words Xander said that day.

Xander, she thought, at this point I don't care if I'm no longer the smartest in Sunnydale High anymore. I'd rather be dumb and stupid than lose my Xander-shaped best friend.

Then her thoughts moved back to the confession from Miss Calendar that got Giles and Buffy so angry. While there was a part of her that understood where the older techno-pagan was coming from when she told them about the curse, the other part of her was too enamored with the Romeo and Juliet style saga going on between the slayer and the vampire.

She felt a little guilty at siding with the majority and was a bit proud that out of all of them, it was Xander that was closed-mouthed about it and did not react as the other two had at the news.

The only thing that caused her to frown as she didn't like the parting words the new resident genius said before he left the library after the computer teacher fled in tears.

"While the circumstances were different here," Xander had said, "What you said to me a few days ago applies."

"That's different," Buffy had replied vehemently as Giles only nodded in agreement, not even daring to say anything as he tried to keep his own anger in check at being betrayed. "This is about Angel."

"That is a 'yes' and also a 'no'," Xander voice floated to them as he left them to their thoughts. "Until you two calm down to actually think of the risks she was taking in presenting herself that way, your conclusions right now will always be what you think it will be."

-0-0-0-0-0-

Willow shook her head clear of the memories; there will be time enough for pondering later as she headed off to class.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Janna Kalderash was putting some finishing touches in her new apartment. She shook her head, still not quite believing at how fast Xander had set it up inside the warehouse and had a sneaking suspicion that the almost five door mini-apartment complex that they now shared was some part of his own personal contingency plan.

Xander had told her as much that he was already living here and not at his home ever since he had found the biggest warehouse unclaimed by vamps and started setting things up as early as a few months back. But to get something like this done in the fewest amount of time possible was still astounding.

That was until she saw just how much the young genius was making since he left his home after Halloween that she began to see how that could be possible. All this was due to an eight-figure budget that was under a proxy name that made sure to get things moving very fast and very quietly. Deciding to take a break from unpacking, she walked out of the mini-apartments and went down to the warehouse basement where her new boss held his hidden labs.

After passing three security checks (i.e. palm print, retina scan, and a few personalized rotating pass codes), she felt like Alice going down the rabbit hole as the titanium doors slid open and revealed a corridor that seemed to be right out of a science fiction movie.

Absentmindedly, she automatically catalogued the rooms that she passed. There was a mini-med bay. It had a fully decked chemical lab behind reinforced biohazard walls, with more than two-inch thick glass. A spare gym room that was a little smaller in scale than the one above them. A state of the art computer lab that was - in her opinion - to die for as it had the most powerful Cray system no one in the world will ever see that was actually built by Xander using the memories of the different Tony Starks running around in his head. Beyond them lay the last room that dwarfed the others in size - a room that Xander had fondly dubbed as "Main Engineering".

And an apt name it was; while the area wasn't too cluttered as she suspected it will be in the future, it was off to a good start. And that was where she found Xander, hunched over and tinkering with something she thought should only exist in the comic books while Rolling Stones music blared from the wall speakers.

She gazed reverently at the half-finished armor that gleamed under the overhead lights. Wires and cables ran in and out of the impossible technological marvel that was suspended by a motorized mobile crane, making the whole thing look like a brighter version of a Geiger artwork. Beside the young man lay a bank of computers that were attached to the cables leading into the suit, each one running systems checks on different parts of the armor that was taking form in front of her very eyes.

"Amazing." She breathed, startling him and causing Xander to drop the wrench he was holding and aim a mark two repulsor pistol on her.

"Whoa!" she exclaimed, alarmed at the speed Xander used to pull off that move as her arms reached for the sky.

"Sorry," he said, immediately pointing the gun downwards as he realized who it was that had startled him. "I guess I got a little too carried away in my work."

"Evidently," she smirked as she got her racing heart back to normal, "Didn't Jarvis let you know I was coming in when I passed the security checks?"

"Yeah," Xander said sheepishly. So that was what the A.I. was talking about, he thought.

"I was busy and kinda ignored him."

"Uh-huh," she said as she turned to the unfinished armor.

"I still feel like I'm dreaming whenever I come in and see this." She said, gazing up at the upper torso of the armor. "What are you using as a power supply again? From what I remember in the comics, it ran off the reactor he had on his chest plate, the one that was keeping him alive when the shrapnel tore into his heart."

"It's not really that different," The young genius replied without really giving her a direct answer. "After studying that alien weapon I showed you, I was able to come up with something close that was even better. Even though half of what was inside that gun's guts aren't even found on this planet, I was able to invent some substitutes to further miniaturize and redistribute the power supply in and around the Mark I."

He gestured at her to take a closer look at one of the monitors, touching the screen to show an exploded view of the incomplete torso.

"I've designed the power source to be modular and distributed it at different points inside the armor once completed." He said, pointing to one node. "That way, if one of them gets damaged, it will be easily replaced or repaired and it won't leave me defenseless in case the going gets tough."

Then he gestured to the stealth suit that she saw him wear the night he visited her in her old apartment, causing both of them to blush at the memory of what happened afterwards.

"The black stealth camo-suit," he explained. "Plays a major role in the armor; the nano-mesh weaving with its own separate, not so infinite power supply stand-alone that I developed inside its lining will help regulate my body while wearing the armor so I won't black out during high-end flight maneuvers and keep watch on my vital signs. Theoretically, it should also keep me from getting the bends if I ever do any deep sea submergence missions. And lastly, the new upgraded belt connects to the upper torso frame and the lower units together."

The techno-pagan was beyond impressed. "How long before it's finished?"

"It still has quite a ways to go," he answered, "Even with my other lab being cutting edge and under Jarvis's watchful eye; Adamantium sheeting is horrendously slow and very expensive to develop. I'd give it a few more weeks until I can make more molds once the new batch of formulas settle. But after that, replacement parts won't take as much time as the originals will. And then I can start thinking of installing more than just repulsors into the thing."

"Why are you pouring this much work into a Mark I?" she asked, curious. "It's like you're trying to ready your first armor for war."

"I just like to have almost all my bases covered," was the reply, "Besides; I'd rather not get caught with my armored pants down in case the real owners of those alien guns I took from the military aren't the friendly type."

"Mm-hmm." She said, not having any sort of witty rejoinder for that one as she had already seen him with his pants down.

"Mm-hmm…" She said again for an altogether different reason as she watched her new boss wink at her then turned around and dove back to work.

And whether she realized it or not, she started purring.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Xander went back to fine-tuning one of the armor's components, absentmindedly suppressing a shiver, thinking to himself that he must've left the AC up a tad too high.

And was that a cat he heard just now?

-0-0-0-0-0-

-- To Be Continued --

-0-0-0-0-0-


	6. Chapter 6

XANDER HARRIS: THE IRON TAU'RI  
By:"Gunsmith3000"  
Started 5-19-08  
Completed: ??

Disclaimers: Nothing belongs to me other than this insane idea I have that just won't let go. Iron Man belongs to Marvel, Stargate SG1 belongs to Paramount.

Summary: Xander goes as one of his favorite marvel comic characters, but gets more than he's bargained for.

-0-0-0-0-0-

"Allergies and Unplanned Reactions"

-0-0-0-0-0-

"Well," Daniel Jackson said as they got back into their SUV. "That was a bust. No other tell-tale evidence of tampering other than the camera and the missing parts. And who had the bright idea of shipping them under the parts of a tactical nuclear missile system?"

"I don't know," Sam replied, a little frustrated at how the trip turned out to be. The whole thing didn't make sense. It was as if the incident was deliberately planned.

If she ever got a hold of whomever it was that did this before Jack could, they'd rue the day for bringing her out of the SGC on a fool's errand.

She had so wanted to test the "new" artifacts of ancient tech that SG5 had brought back.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Someone somewhere sneezed.

-0-0-0-0-0-

In Los Angeles, Jack O'Neill was thinking the same thing as he got finished with Col. Berber on the missing zat fiasco. He called Carter on his cell and set up a place to meet in Sunnydale before heading back to Colorado.

Bad enough the project went into NID hands, but it was worse when he found out that Sunnydale was a major hotspot for those kinds of things.

If he ever got a hold of whomever it was that did this, they'd rue the day for bringing him out of the SGC on a fool's errand.

He'd rather be fishing.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Another person somewhere sneezed.

-0-0-0-0-0-

General Hammond was in one word, annoyed. He had just finished a long conversation with the President that shed a little more light to the current situation his flag team was involved in and the news was bad.

Whoever started this damned mess had better not cross his path for making his team run all over California like a headless chicken.

Besides, who knows what kind of damages O'Neill could have accrued while off base.

-0-0-0-0-0-

A third person somewhere sneezed.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Jack's nose twitched and wondered if he was getting a cold.

-0-0-0-0-0-

"God damn morons leading us on this wild goose chase!" thought Sam, Jack, and Hammond at the same time.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Somewhere in an undisclosed location, someone named Harry Maybourne sneezed violently for five minutes.

For a second there, he wondered who he pissed off this time.

A chorus of voices groaned behind him and one of them barked.

"God damn it sir, you told us you took your allergy pills before we left!"

-0-0-0-0-0-

"This is Cassandra Clarke with a breaking news bulletin: the semi-annual Congress meeting that was held today was shut down abruptly due to a bizarre bout of sneezing from several important members due to an unknown allergen." the news announcer said.

"It was also reported that one Senator in particular had been sent to the emergency room due to developing a sudden and severe case of the flu. In light of this strange epidemic, the rest of the cabinet members were given rush inoculations to prevent further contracting the sudden illness. We have more on this strange story tonight with Aki Yamada live at ten p.m. eastern/pacific time."

-0-0-0-0-0-

"Sam, why are we going this way?" Daniel asked as they parked across the largest warehouse he'd ever seen outside of an industrial district across town from the depot. "Didn't Jack say he'd meet with us back at the base to get a personal look-see at the site?"

The blond major shrugged and pointed at the sign outside the warehouse as if it held all the answers she needed as an explanation.

"Paladin Core Industries"

"Since their O.S. is so good," she said, "I just wanted to see what else they are working on. Rumor has it that this is their first warehouse where the O.S. was originally designed."

"You're kidding?" Daniel blinked as he read the sign and turned back to her. "And it's here in Sunnydale? And with the army depot right opposite to it on the other side of town, don't you think it's a little suspicious?"

"I checked." Sam said as they got out of the SUV and headed for the entrance. "Their OS was released over a month before the zats were even designated to be shipped here. So there is nothing in their records that indicate any involvement. I'm just here on pure curiosity. That a company can make something that advanced and that simple is amazing."

Daniel shook his head while he chuckled softly. "That's our Sam all right." He thought.

"Besides," Sam reasoned, "Since this whole day was a bust, I wanted a little pick-me-up."

-0-0-0-0-0-

"Sir," Jarvis announced as he lowered the volume on the rock music that was playing over Main Engineering's speakers. "It seems you have possible potential investors visiting upstairs."

"Jeez," Xander complained as he looked up from the leg unit he was testing. "And just when 'Patience' was almost over too. So who are they?"

"Doctor Daniel Jackson and Major Samantha Carter are here to see you, sir." Jarvis stated as a holo-visual image appeared before Xander, bringing up two sets of electronic files for his quick perusal. He sped-read the brief dossiers, but lingered appreciatively on the major's file as he brought up more pictures of her.

"Mmm," he said thoughtfully and headed for the showers in his micro-apartment within Main Engineering. "Aren't they from that place we traced one of our recently sold OS to? The SGC?"

"Yes sir," Jarvis replied. "It was an amazing stroke of luck to have stumbled on to them like we did. We were not expecting that immediate a result in our search in regards to those alien weapons you have acquired a month after the Pal-Core O.S. were introduced for government use. I have granted level 1 access to the lobby as per standard guest protocol for potential buyers."

"Good work, Jarvis. And who would have thought it was their group that was both helping and risking this planet for the so-called betterment of humankind." Xander said, after he finished washing up and started getting ready and made sure a lighter version of the stealth belt looped around his pants. "They can't know about me yet. Please ready my shift-watch for me: Stark model three."

"On the right drawer, sir." The A.I. replied. "The model three when combined with your current belt has a six hour power capacity."

"Understood," Xander said, he clasped the watch to his wrist and touched the clear crystal face dial. Once done, he gave it a clockwise half-twist.

Miniature lightning played over Xander's watch and the micro-cams on his belt responded, Xander was bathed in light until a solid holographic shell formed on top of his own. Once the shell was complete, there stood a man in his late twenties and was about Xander's height. Dark, neatly combed raven hair adorned his head, a pencil-thin mustache sat regally above his upper lip, and the roguish smile that graced his face made him look like a 1930's style actor at the prime of his career.

"Let's do this." The pleasant baritone that accompanied the disguise said as the watch on his wrist stabilized. "Jarvis, lock down main engineering and access to the labs below ground on my authority, nine-alpha-tango."

He got on the lift leading to the main warehouse floor to meet his unexpected guests.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Major Samantha Carter could not believe what she saw when she entered the lobby of the huge warehouse. A veritable showcase of almost impossible inventions had littered the area in a museum-like quality made her jaw drop as a prerecorded voice greeted them upon entering.

"Welcome to Paladin Core Industries' research and development warehouse one." The automated voice said as it began some sort of sales pitch. "What you see before you are the earlier prototypes under development for our up and coming line of future products that we hope will revolutionize and better the human way of living." As the automated voice droned on, each display lit up in time to the monologue as the voice elaborated some of their varied uses.

Carter acted almost like a child in a candy shop as each display caught her interest, but the one thing that made her jaw drop even further was the central display that looked like a huge cage labeled "Solid State Holographic Imaging Module Prototype".

"And here we are," Jarvis said in his faux automated voice monologue. "Our latest product still under heavy development: The Solid State Holographic Imaging Module…"

Sam walked around the large device, studying it from various angles, giddy at the possibilities. The cage was comprised of various small projectors and lasers intricately linked from the cage's floor, the side beams, and to its ceiling and covered by a thin layer of glass or plastic for each. If the machine worked as advertised; then anything projected inside the cage would actually be a free-floating almost solid hologram.

"The guys at ILM kinda took a shine to that one." A voice that clearly was not a machine said from behind them, causing the two to whirl around in surprise.

The man they saw in front of them was dressed in what seemed to be made of Armani and his hands were inside his trouser pockets. He was also sported a roguish devil-may-care grin underneath the pencil-thin mustache that would have fit in well in a Humphrey Bogart movie.

"Does it actually work?" Sam asked, slightly unnerved that the man had sneaked up on them, but then again, it was understandable as the huge cage occupied her current attention.

"Let's try, shall we?" The handsome man said, politely excusing himself as he made his way to the console that was directly behind where Daniel was standing and booted up the computer that jutted out from one of the beams that made the cage's sides.

The lights within the cage activated and the onboard computer started its boot-up process. While waiting, Xander asked. "What would you like to see first?"

"The pyramids," Daniel blurted out before Sam could say anything.

"Which one?" Xander asked for clarification as he set up some parameters within the console. From within the cage, a slideshow of the well-known pyramids from all over the world appeared before them.

"That one." Daniel said, pointing to the picture of the pyramid located in Peru.

"Please step inside." The disguised teen said as he finalized the parameters on the console.

"Is it safe?" Sam asked for Daniel's sake as the archeologist was beginning to sport the same look she had on her face.

"Yep." Xander replied, "Come over here and monitor the console with me. My name's Alex Jarvis, by the way."

As Daniel stepped into the large cage, Sam introduced herself and her colleague absentmindedly as she watched the man call up the blueprints and available pictures for that specific pyramid that Daniel was seeing inside the cage and inserted it into the parameters. Both SG team members gasped in surprise as the inside of the cage turned to match the blueprints in a three-dimensional manner.

"Amazing!" Daniel breathed, reaching out to touch the walls of the passageway he found himself in and was shocked to find it almost solid even though it was slightly translucent.

"Sam!" he cried, "Come in here, you have to see this."

Taking a portable remote access device from the console's side, Xander gestured to Samantha Carter as they both stepped into the cage.

Carter was stunned once they were inside, the hologram around them was indeed almost solid and the warehouse beyond them was barely visible. Like Daniel, she reached out towards one of the walls and her eyes widened as some sort of pressure was there to give illusion that the wall was indeed solid.

"It still needs some work," Xander lied.

The two guests just looked at him, mouths agape, both thinking that the system was perfect enough as it was. Carter's brain was going beyond warp speed at the practical applications the current cage they were in could do.

"The passive and active lasers that are bouncing around us in here with the projectors have been set according to the blueprints that are available for this site." Xander explained. "It is relatively strong on the areas where things such as doors, walls, outcroppings, etc. are located to give a simulated feel of solidity. Unfortunately, we haven't come up with anything yet to make the simulation one hundred percent solid to tactile response."

The duo just kept staring at him.

"Okay," the disguised teen tried to explain further. "Imagine if we could make this holographic duplicate solid and tactile; you would be free to explore the replicated ruins as if you're actually there without fear of further compromising the integrity and inherent dangers of sites such as these. All you have to do is just take the data you gathered remotely and load them up into the console and activate the module."

Just then, Sam's cell phone rang and she excused herself.

-0-0-0-0-0-

"Carter," Jack's voice could be heard on the cell once Sam answered her phone on the fourth ring. "Where the hell are you two? The depot sergeant on duty told me us you already left them over an hour ago."

"Uh, sorry about that, sir," Sam replied, blushing a little. "Daniel and I are currently at the Paladin Core Industries main research and development warehouse."

Jack stared at his phone, practically "seeing" the blush in her voice. "Come again?"

"I just wanted to drop by and visit the company where we got the new O.S. from and see what else they have been able to come up with."

"Does it have anything to do at all with our current mission?" Jack asked as he recognized the giddy tone now that he thought about it.

"No, not at all." she replied, "But I've seen a few things here in Pal-Core R&D that would be very beneficial to all of us there at the SGC. And…"

"Whoa, stop it right there." Jack barked as he realized the time, "Just get whatever info and stuff you can and pack it in, I want you to meet up with me at the depot before dark so we can get out of here. Even Teal'c says that junior is acting a little off ever since we set foot on this town."

"Sir?" She was puzzled, surely Jack knew they had been outside after dark lots of times in Colorado, so why the fuss now?

"I've borrowed a chopper out of L.A. so we can head back ASAP to the jet waiting to take us back to the SGC. I've had enough of this damn goose chase, let's go home."

"Yes sir." Sam said as she closed the call.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Back inside, Daniel was still engrossed as the surrounding inside the Holographic cage was now showing King Tut's tomb in full 3D. Bending over one of the intricate hieroglyphics, he ran a hand over the almost-solid hologram and re-read the glyphs that the original archeologist that discovered the tomb had translated so long ago while the disguised Xander looked on with pride over his prototype.

"Daniel!" Samantha Carter's voice called to him from outside the cage. "Let's pack it in. Jack says he wants us back before dark."

"Huh? Okay." the boyish archeologist said as he stood up from where he was kneeling over and stepped out of the cage while Xander watched them with open curiosity.

"Mr. Jarvis," Sam said to their host, reaching into her wallet for the dummy supplies Air Force division card the SGC used from time to time when it found something that interested them that could be applied for SGC use and handed it over to him.

"I wish we had more time to stay, you have some amazing projects here in your company, but we have to go. Here's our card, I'm very interested in some of the projects we've seen in here and hope can do business in the future."

The disguised teen took the card and looked at it with exaggerated surprise. "You're with the Air Force? I thought you guys were with Robert Ballard's group that decided to come a day early."

"Pardon me?" Daniel asked, knowing of whom Xander was speaking of, "You do mean Robert Duane Ballard right, the one who found the Titanic?"

"Yes, I'm sorry for the mix-up." Xander lied. Though in truth, one of Ballard's team (if not Ballard himself) will indeed visit probably the next day to check the machine out. "I wasn't expecting anyone else to show up, and his team wanted a demonstration of the module for use with submersible remote robot photography so they wouldn't have to use a live crew when they go back to the Titanic. I just thought they came in early and mistook you for them."

He made a show of looking thoughtful and asked them. "You two don't have an appointment do you?"

"No," Sam said smiled, a little embarrassed. "We were in the area and I was curios about the Company our IT division spoke highly of in regards to our new OS."

"The Pal-Core system designed for military specs?" Xander asked, at seeing her nod in affirmative, he smiled and handed her a DVD-Rom. "In that case, I might as well give this to you. We normally send them out to all our clients that have begun to use our system. Inside is a digital brochure of some of the development projects we have currently, including the module you two seem to like so much. I have extras and was going to give that to the Ballard team, but you can have it if you like."

Sam's smile brightened in wattage as she accepted the disk. After saying their farewells, they headed back to the Sunnydale Armory to meet up with Jack.

"For a disappointing day, it pretty much turned out well." She said to Daniel as they got in the SUV.

"I agree," Daniel replied enthusiastically. "I hope you can convince the SGC to let us have one of those modules. Just think about; if we don't feel like going through the gate or the environment on the other side is too hostile, we could just send a MALP through and see what it sees in the cage via the data bursts."

"I know." Sam said, "The application of the holographic module is almost limitless in terms of research and reconnaissance."

"Yeah," Daniel nodded, then he suddenly had a thought. "Hey, doesn't it strike you that our host looks somewhat familiar? That he sort of looks like a younger version of Duncan Regehr with a pencil-thin mustache?"

"Who is Duncan Regehr?"

-0-0-0-0-0-

Back in the Pal-Core warehouse, specifically inside the underground computer labs, Xander pulled up the data Jarvis was able to extract from the SGC and reviewed them.

"I really should have been more careful when I stole those zats." He thought after perusing the latest data Jarvis had downloaded.

Finding out about his little boo-boo via a taped closed circuit camera, he discovered minute hints about a so-called un-labelled project against the supernatural. The hinted project worried him. He hoped they haven't started it yet without fully analyzing the situation. He wasn't able to find out anything more about it, but he instructed Jarvis to keep an eye out for it from time to time just in case.

I think its time to let Janna in on this, he thought. Looking at the wall clock in the lab, he found out he had missed dinner.

"Jarvis, please call Janna." He said when the latest download finished, he shut down the link to the SGC mainframe and closed the wingman hub that prevented anyone from tracking his IP signal. "I'll be up to fix us some dinner in a bit if she hasn't eaten yet."

"Miss Kalderash is not within the premises." Jarvis replied after a quick scan.

"Oh yeah," Xander said worriedly, "I heard she was cleaning out her stuff in the school after she handed in her resignation today. She should have been home by now."

Even though he knew she was a very capable witch, the sun had already set over an hour ago and the feeling of foreboding crawled up his spine.

"Sir," Jarvis said, alarm laced the A.I.'s voice. "I have just received an emergency transmission from the beacon you have supplied her with."

"Shit!" Xander said, running out of the lab and towards the lift to get to his specially designed motorcycle filled with hidden vamp-hunting gear. "Give me a broad scan."

"Sir!" Jarvis said again, "I'm reading at least five vampires closing in on her location; she is also accompanied by another human female who appears to be injured. Xander, the beacon included a one-word burst voice transmission."

"One word?" Xander almost stumbled halfway to the lift. That made no sense at all.

"Play it."

"Complying," Jarvis replied as the corridor Xander was in was filled the terrified voice of Janna Kalderash.

The name that poured out of the transmission made his blood run cold.

Angelus.

"Fuck." Xander complexion had turned bone white as dread filled him. How in the hell was that possible?

"The bastard's early." he cursed.

Forget the bike, he thought as he turned around and made a mad dash into Main Engineering.

Running past the unfinished Mark I, he veered towards a hidden alcove to a vault labeled "Armory". He flicked on a switch and a medium-sized footlocker withdrew from one of the vault's recesses.

The medium-sized footlocker had only four words stenciled across its surface as he ran a nervous hand over it and opened the case.

The stenciled words read "Mark Zero Test Unit."

-0-0-0-0-0-

To Be Continued...

-0-0-0-0-0-

A/N: For those of you who don't know who Duncan Regehr is; I would suggest googling a picture of him until you find a picture of that makes him look like Tony Stark from the comics. I used that look as the Stark model 3 disguise. I also pictured him as the look for the Iron Magus Supreme.

Here's a hint, Duncan Regehr played as Zorro on the show of the same name that ran from 1989 till 1993 on the family channel...

-0-0-0-0-0-


	7. Chapter 7

XANDER HARRIS: THE IRON TAU'RI  
By:"Gunsmith3000"  
Started 5-19-08  
Completed: ??

Disclaimers: Nothing belongs to me other than this insane idea I have that just won't let go. Iron Man belongs to Marvel, Stargate SG1 belongs to Paramount.

Summary: Xander goes as one of his favorite marvel comic characters, but gets more than he's bargained for.

And the Mark Zero looks like the Mark 2 from the movie.

-0-0-0-0-0-

"The Vampire, the Witch, and Xander's prototype Wardrobe"

-0-0-0-0-0-

Janna felt that her heart rate had already sped up past the point of shock, her efforts to get away to safety had been hampered as she half-carried and dragged the injured woman with her. She could not very well leave her to fend for herself; after all, she did save her life. She couldn't believe how hard Angel threw the young woman into a tree like that; it didn't make any sense until she ran a low level mystic scan and found that her clan's worst nightmare came true.

Angelus was free, and Janna did her best not to panic in spite of the situation.

Shaking her head, trying to clear it from the shock of the revelation, there would be time enough to wonder how and why later. Getting out of the current danger she was in was paramount so there would be a time to ask those questions later. She barely had time to activate the special beacon Xander gave her for emergencies. Unfortunately, this situation was more than just an emergency. It was a disaster of epic proportions. As it was, the young woman that had helped her survive the four vampires that Angelus sent on ahead of him did not expect an un-cursed vampire to strike from behind at the last minute while occupied. Janna could only hope that whatever injury the young woman obtained under the master vampire's not-so-gentle ministrations was not permanent.

"Keep running, bitch." She heard Angelus call out to her, "A little birdie told me all about you and your clan. It'll make killing you both a whole lot sweeter before I ship you back to your clan in bits and pieces."

Janna cast a quick fire spell at the remaining two vampires that was chasing her and managed to light one afire, her aim being predictably off due to her burden. She saw Angelus whistle and like moth to a flame, a few more vampires emerged from their hiding places and advanced towards the helpless duo.

"Janna!" a voice called out from the darkness accompanied by a bigger fire spell that landed a few feet from her and blew itself towards the closest advancing vampires, turning at least four to ash and causing the others to back up in caution.

"That's right, filth," the voice said as its owner stepped into the light of the nearest streetlamp. "Nevermore shall you harm a Kalderash while I live, this I swear."

"Anna!" Janna Kalderash exclaimed; catching sight of her cousin as soon as the woman emerged from the darkness like some avenging angel.

"You!" Angelus stopped and stared, his already normal pale complexion going down a shade further. "I killed you, you should be dead!"

"No, not me." the woman named Anna replied, joining her follow Romany and her burden. "You killed my ancestor's twin sister."

"BURN!" Anna Kalderash screamed as she let fly with another fire spell bigger than the one she loosed before.

Angelus grabbed the two vamps nearest him and shoved them onto the blast at the last possible second then beat a hasty retreat. Calling for more minions to come out until enough of them got between him and the pissed off Romany, hoping to take them all down with the strength of numbers as they surrounded them.

Then an unfamiliar sound made itself known; an invisible force crashed onto the general vicinity right behind the crowd, sending those close to ground zero onto the pavement. Like a Cheshire cat; only in reverse, an armored leg appeared as the being took shape bit by bit until its head was now exposed. They could see small camera-like lenses protruding from the silver armored creature at strategic places before they slowly folded into the armor.

Janna thought she was beginning to lose it; first Angelus shows up, then her cousin (who was obviously the one they sent as her replacement in watching said vampire that just showed up), and now this. Granted that it took a lot to unsettle a Kalderash woman after so many shocks to the system under the normal circumstances, this was not one of them, so when she saw the familiar armor that defied all rational thought in spite of the situation; so her body did the best thing it could do and faint. The last thing she remembered before passing out was Anna calling out to her as blackness claimed her.

The armored being stood up from its kneeled landing position, the glowing slits that passed for its eyes shining with malevolence towards the undead that surrounded the human females.

The creature's armored palms started emitting some sort of bluish-white light as a fearsome growl managed to work its way out of the thing's head when it saw one of the woman faint.

"That's not the right way to treat the ladies." It spoke in a metallic voice before it attacked without warning, seemingly going from a standing position to be right in their midst in an instant.

For something that looked like it weighed over a ton, it moved with surprising cat-like efficiency and speed. The glowing circles on the thing's palms proved more than mere decoration as it instantly dusted some vampires as the palms made contact with the vampires' chests, sometimes at point blank range, blowing their torso clean off their body before their entire undead shell disintegrated.

This time it was the vampires that panicked as their numbers dwindled in droves from the combined might of a powerful Romany spell caster and a silver armored monster. When the dust settled, literally, it was a tired witch and a smoking armored individual that emerged as the victor.

Both of them eyed each other warily.

"I'm a friend." The armored individual said with his arms up and palms open as gesture of greeting.

Problem was, there was a circle of light at the center of each palm that was softly glowing and was unintentionally aimed at her.

"That remains to be seen." The Romany woman said, knowing full well what those circle of lights had done to those bloodsuckers moments before.

As if realizing that fact, Xander cut power to the gauntlets, glad that the helmet hid his blush at that little lapse.

"Jarvis," Xander said, trying to calm his heavy breathing inside the Mark Zero. "Any chance Angel was among the dusted?"

"Negative." The onboard communiqué from the A.I. replied as it scanned the area through the armor's sensors. "Subject designated 'Angel' had left the vicinity when you were trying to keep the women safe. Please also note that power reserves have now activated, fifty minutes till armor shuts down into recharge mode."

Xander cursed silently, he hoped that he had enough time to get them all to the warehouse before that happens. Taking care not to make sudden moves so as not to agitate the witch near him, he walked towards Janna and other unconscious girl near her. A quick scan of Janna showed her to be all right, but the other woman was in bad shape. According to what his onboard sensors were telling him, her spine and ribcage suffered a tremendous amount of trauma. He wondered what could have caused this and who was responsible and could only guess that it was Angelus. The injuries she had sustained this night could leave her paralyzed from the waist down even if she had the right medical treatment. He sighed within his armor and advised his A.I. to prep the medical bay inside his labs so it would be ready in time when he arrived, glad that he had the foresight to build a fully functional medical facility and managed to squeeze it into his underground labs.

"We need to get to a safer location." He said towards the witch that was watching him like a hawk, "This woman needs immediate medical attention."

"What of Janna?" the woman he heard Janna called Anna asked in accented English.

"She's all right," Xander replied, "A bit bruised and scraped in some places but otherwise relatively unharmed. It's her companion I'm more worried about."

After he saw her sigh in relief, he asked again. "Do you have a vehicle nearby? I cannot carry all three of you to where I'm going and I don't want to risk the other girl's more serious injuries."

"Yes, it's this way." She replied, pointing towards a lit parking area while studying the aura of the being before her, she almost had to close her eyes as all she could see were two bright colors in red and gold before she let go of her mystic sight. She didn't understand the significance of what she saw, but for some strange reason, she knew that the armored being was trustworthy. "I was tracking her via locator spell but did not realize that she was that much in danger."

Xander nodded and lifted the injured girl in his arms while Anna levitated her cousin's prone form as they headed for her car. Xander blinked as he saw the vehicle. It was a late model Caddy convertible with lots of backseat room. Convenient for this occasion, he thought. He laid the injured girl in the backseat and made sure she was secure while Anna strapped her cousin in the passenger seat, then got into the driver's side.

"Where is this safe location you wish to go to?" The woman asked the armored stranger as she placed her key into the ignition and started the car.

Weighing his options, he and his inner Starks did a few quick mental calculations and decided on the best course of action. "Stop your engine, keep quiet and hang on." He said as he bent down and lifted the automobile over his head.

"Activate Counter-Encounter System, mode one and then mode two." He commanded to the suit as the small camera-like protrusions came back out at different parts of his armor and started bending light around his person – including the automobile he held aloft over his head. With that done, he activated his boot jets and flew quickly, but cautiously towards his warehouse.

"Sir," Jarvis warned. "Rate of power reduction has risen by a factor of twenty five percent."

"I know that, Jarvis," Xander gritted his teeth inside the helmet as he could feel the strain the Zero armor was undergoing even through the nano-mesh body suit he wore underneath the armor.

"I don't exactly have a choice here." He said, "Shut off active and passive combat/defense systems, and then divert power to the CES and to the boot jets."

-0-0-0-0-0-

All throughout the trip, Anna was bone white as her hands clutched the steering wheel in a death grip while she wondered exactly what her cousin had gotten into. Hearing a noise to her left, she saw that cousin Janna was starting to come to.

Janna's eyes were wide when she came to as she realized that the car she found herself in was flying. She had no doubts as to who was underneath the vehicle supplying said flight. Turning to her cousin, her eyes widened even further as she noticed how Anna was faring and saw the death grip she had on the steering wheel.

Then she remembered that her cousin Anna was afraid of flying.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Xander was almost out of power as they landed and made it into the warehouse's side entrance that was large enough to accommodate Anna's car. The entrance was also conveniently close to the mini apartments he and Janna shared within the building. Taking his leave from the two witches, he carried the injured girl in his arms and quickly made his way to the medical facility located underneath his base before he lost all power. He made a note to himself to upgrade the Mark Zero's prototype power unit for field use.

With the armored creature gone, Anna Kalderash turned to face to her wayward cousin and demanded an explanation.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Eight hours later, Janna heard Xander knock outside her door and moved to let him in. The young man entered her apartment and made a beeline for one of the unoccupied couches that littered her living room and fell into it with the grace of a falling boulder.

Janna's cousin stared at the young man with one of her eyebrows raised as she got a clear picture of who was wearing the armor a few hours earlier. He seemed little young, but not bad at all. Definitely going to be worth checking out when he got older.

"How is the girl?" she asked for her cousin's sake as Janna took a seat beside her.

Xander turned a weary gaze to her. "For the most part it was touch and go there for a while." He replied, "But in there end, I had to operate."

"Operate?" Janna asked, stunned. "But you're not a doctor."

"A few of them were." He said and sat up; knowing that Janna might get what he was referring to in that regards. "She suffered major trauma to her ribs and her spinal column was almost completely broken. I did an in-depth scan and I found out she was also bleeding internally. It was miracle that she managed to survive and would have ultimately died if I hadn't put her in stasis and did the operation then. Essentially, she was in a way – technically dead – until I took her out of it. Anyhow, the operation was a success. She is under heavy sedation and now resting in the recovery room. I'm having Jarvis run a bio trace on her in case someone filed her missing within the next forty eight hours."

"Xander," Janna said haltingly, trying to put words from her thoughts in order. "She told me her name is Kendra."

"Kendra? No last name?" the young man interjected, and called out into the air. "Jarvis, include that into the search pattern please."

"Understood, sir." The A.I.'s voice replied, causing Anna to jump slightly, but not much.

The resident Kalderash had wisely introduced her cousin to the somewhat quirky A.I. before any misunderstanding could take place. The first time that Jarvis spoke out of thin air surprised the visiting Romany so much when she first set foot in Janna's apartment that she almost sent a dozen spells flying in every direction in trying to nail the voice's owner. Luckily, Janna was able to calm her fiery cousin down and explain what had happened to her in more detail, but minus the "I slept with jailbait and it was mind-blowing" part.

"Xander," Janna continued, unsure as to how to put it delicately at the new mess Xander had unleashed. "The reason why Kendra survived until surgery is because she is a Slayer."

"Oh shit." The young man stared at her as he suddenly realized the consequences of what he just did a few hours ago in the med bay.

For once, the peanut gallery inside his mind had nothing to say as they, too, had completely forgotten about the other Slayer in regards to one of their Starks's TV memories about Buffy.

"When a Slayer dies," Anna said, as she understood the implications as well and looked at the young man in awe. "Another is called."

-0-0-0-0-0-

Somewhere in Boston, a young girl woke up from a nightmare. Although, for some strange reason, the nightmare wasn't completely a nightmare at all because before the monsters in her dream could get to her, something stood in front of them to bar the way.

It was a knight in shining armor.

"Ugh," she said, making a face. "No more Ben and Jerry while eating spicy pizza with anchovies."

-0-0-0-0-0-

--To Be Continued--

-0-0-0-0-0-

A/N: I was a bit unclear if I remembered or not if the original family of the Romany lady Angelus offed to curse him with a soul had a sibling or not, but since this is my fic, I gave her one.

The look of the Mark Zero is simple, its an almost exact duplicate of the Mark 2 on the Ironman movie with Rob Downey, Jr.

-0-0-0-0-0-


	8. Chapter 8

XANDER HARRIS: THE IRON TAU'RI  
By:"Gunsmith3000"  
Started 5-19-08  
Completed: ??

Disclaimers: Nothing belongs to me other than this insane idea I have that just won't let go. Iron Man belongs to Marvel, Stargate SG1 belongs to Paramount.

Summary: Xander goes as one of his favorite marvel comic characters, but gets more than he's bargained for.

-0-0-0-0-0-

"Show and Tell, and The Other Mess"

-0-0-0-0-0-

"First, I'd like to welcome you all back safe and sound." General Hammond said as they started their morning debrief after SG1 came back from their latest mission. "Aside from Major Carter's unexpected field trip to one of our new supplier's warehouse, have you found anything at all in regards to the strange theft and possible security leak?"

"Other than the fact Junior got a panic attack while Sunnydale?" Jack opened, "Not a damned clue. Everything checks out with Col. Berber in L.A., they shipped out fully accounted for by eyeball inventory. Even arrived intact until that cam we all saw got funky, and 'poof', they're gone."

"Come again?" Hammond and Carter asked, both surprised that a seemingly small town could give even a larval Goa'uld unease. Daniel was also intrigued but simply sat there to see the events unfold, his mind was still on the holographic chamber that showed him his favorite archeological digs.

Of course, now that he thought about it, something about that small town also sent him slightly on edge, but simply passed it off in part because of the mission. He tried to remember what exactly, but shrugged, he would have to look it up later after the debriefing.

Teal'c looked stoic as ever, but even after a full night of meditation did not completely wipe the look of frazzled nerves that had entered his system whilst in Sunnydale. He tried to put his thoughts to words his friends could understand.

"I cannot explain it myself," Teal'c began, the frown on his face becoming even more pronounced than usual. "From the moment I stepped foot in this Sunnydale, I had begun to feel a deep sense of unease. Like something was not right, it was as if I was torn between wanting to see more of the area and yet also wanting to be far away as possible from it."

"And then the strangest thing happened," the former first Prime continued, "Those feelings started fading as I grew accustomed to the area, the lingering sense to run faded completely, but the sense of unease remained – as if warning me that I should be wary for as long as I stayed."

"Which was a very good idea considering where we were," Jack muttered, mostly to himself. "I still can't believe it. Of all places for that thing to go to, it actually went to ground zero. If those half-wits screw up on this, I will personally shoot them in the head with armor-piercing hollow point tracers."

Hammond looked at Teal'c in thought, "Have yourself checked over with Doctor Frasier when you pass by the infirmary." He said as the red phone rang near him.

The Jaffa nodded and stayed silent for the remainder of the debriefing, clearly not wanting to broach the subject further and respectfully waited along with the others as the General spoke into the phone.

Hammond shook his head once, then nodded and ended the call. Taking a deep for a moment, he turned back to his flagship team and spoke.

"As of now," he said, "According to the joint chiefs and the president, your involvement into the matter is now over."

"What?" Jack exclaimed; a bit incensed at that. "They drag us all the way out to California for a look-see, and when we can't find a damn thing, they let us go? So long and thanks for all the fish and all that? It was our zats they lost for crying out loud!"

Everyone stared at him a little for using that reference; even Teal'c had an eyebrow up as he had just finished reading the book a few days back.

"What?" Jack said, annoyed. "I like Doug Adams. Still, I think we deserve more credit in this than mere go-fers on their mess."

"Jack," Hammond said warningly, "Let it go, even the president said so. So far, all I can say on the subject is that the project it was headed for is suspended, pending full review."

Jack blew out a breath of annoyance and settled into his customary sulking position. His hands noticeably missing from the top of the table, no doubt mimicking strangling motions again at the current banes of his existence that was just as bad as the snakes he fought off world.

At least the snakeheads can be trusted to do two things, he thought: if they can't beat it into submission; they eradicate it. Trying to stave off a renewed bout of sulking, he did his best to pay attention at what other thing Carter wanted to talk about since coming back from Sunnydale.

"Okay Carter," Jack said to get the ball rolling. "You're up."

Sam reached down beside her and brought up a laptop onto the desk as she started to explain a few things while setting it up so it link up with the large wall screen on the end.

"After we left the Sunnydale Armory," she started, trying to tone down her enthusiasm. Having already studied the product demo disc Alexander had given her, she had such a good feeling about it that she sent a request for more discs to pass around the rest of SGC techs. "I was curious about the creators of the new OS we're now using on base. So since we were in Sunnydale, I decided to go and see for myself what else they may have been making so far."

On the wall screen, they could see the opening boot up sequence of the disc. It showed the company logo: a white circular background with an Excalibur-style sword floating inside, blade down; in front of the sword was a chalice – supposedly the holy grail; and engraved on the chalice was a tower shield with a cross motif. Rounding off the image were the words "Science" written in Latin around the top part of the circle; and the lower part had the Latin word for "Virtue". Outside the circular logo along its circumference were the words: Paladin Core Industries.

From there, it became a commercial with a voice-over from a male announcer giving a brief overview of the company and then delved straight into the products currently available for public and private use. Each of those watching, Carter aside, were amazed at the offerings. Even Jack and Teal'c lit up as they saw a few things they could use for some of their personal stuff. Then the demo disk started showing its R and D projects for future development.

Each item had brief overviews on what they were and what they could and should do; Sam pressed pause on the disc after each one and gave her own opinion as she had toured the place along with Daniel. As the demo disc was wrapping up, the last R and D project came up.

The screen darkened a bit and the beginnings of a Star Trek-like fanfare cheekily rolled across the speakers in the conference room. Once the screen lit up once more, those that were not with the duo then saw the holographic cage for the first time.

The voice-over did its standard overview about the product in development, stating several possible uses for such a device. It then said that the cage itself is merely a stand-alone construct. Once the final development phase of the holographic chamber was completed - the finished product can be installed into any room of the client's choosing. When the other heard this, their jaws dropped. Even the normally unflappable Teal'c started thinking of the possibilities of the device.

Daniel was already calculating the earnings that he saved up and figured he would probably have to sink everything he had into buying that chamber and the cost it would take in refitting the room inside his house to accommodate it. Jack wasn't far off in that regard either as he was already thinking about talking to Hammond for getting one for the SGC.

The DVD demo disk wound down and then flashed a set of contact information for those interested. After that, Sam stood up, switched the screen off, ejected the disk, then placed it into the provided case and turned back to the stunned room with a smug expression on her face.

"Major," Hammond began, "Have you shown this to anyone else?"

"Other than the other buyers who may have already gotten a copy before we did," Sam replied, "Just a few who have been working on the PALCORE OS full time for the base."

"Can you make a copy for the Joint Chiefs and for the President?" Hammond asked, "Technology like this is something we can't pass up. The way that company is going in their development, it won't be long until the brass found a way for them to become a military asset. Let's also start a background check on them in case we have to make them aware of the Stargate Program."

"Of course sir," Samantha said as she logged onto the server on her laptop and started sending order requests for more copies of the discs to send to the appropriate people.

-0-0-0-0-0-

It had already been a few days later after the incident and Kendra still lay sedated. With the help of Anna and Janna Kalderash, they were able to slow her slayer regeneration considerably so her spine could heal correctly. According to Jarvis's estimates, she would have to be in a self-induced coma for at least over a week or more. During that time, the two Romany began their investigation as to what freed the demonic vampire cursed with a soul as well as tried to get word with their clan that the demon was once again loose.

Along that time, the infamous Scooby Gang were also notified in regarding Angelus coming out of Angel's shell; however, no one believed them until the body count started skyrocketing. Giles, in part from both the Romany and a recently arrived Sam Zabuto; was also notified in regards to the other slayer that had revealed herself the same night Anna did. The two witches decided to keep mum as to her absence the moment her watcher declared his charge dead. Apparently, they both knew standard Council policy.

Anna, due to her short tempter; almost fried Buffy with an intentionally missed lightning bolt when the blond slayer kept going on about her missing paramour. Cordelia had joined them during the story both Romany witches gave out, failed laughing when she saw how the missed spell somehow made most of the Slayer's blond tress literally rise on end. The words from Anna echoed in the library at Buffy's near-miss electrocution. "Has that damned bleach eroded all reasoning from you?" they heard her say, the words from the witch added insult to injury.

A catfight between a Slayer and a pissed-off witch would have happened until Cordelia drew attention to a brooding Xander with a well-placed question. All throughout the meeting, Xander had kept quiet. His mind was thinking of a dozen things at once. When Cordy asked as to his unusual silence, he stated in a distracted air that he was thinking about how that vampire had lost his soul in the first place. To which, in response, all heads swiveled towards the blond slayer's direction for clarification.

"When was the last time you saw Angel?" Xander had asked her.

The slayer demurely replied that they had gone ice-skating the night she lied to her watcher with the excuse of studying. While at the frozen lake, an unknown assailant had attacked them, after the fight, they later identified the assailant as an assassin from the Order of Teraka. Angel was hurt during the ambush, so after leaving the battle with the assassin defeated, she invited the vampire to her abode to dress his wounds and let him heal. From her rather dark blush, the rest of them figured that something led to another. Her mother had been out of town that night, so the opportunity showed itself to them. She showed them the signet ring that Angel had managed to claim from the body. The Watchers and the Romany gasped as they knew the significance of the signet ring, not only was Angelus loose, but now they had to contend with a league of assassins as well.

The only available courses of action were to either run, or hide, and that resulted in a resounding negative from the slayer. As much as the situation worried Xander, he knew how hardheaded Buffy could be in the short time he knew of her. Some of the memories the Starks flashed back to times when they themselves had to fend off assassination attempts on their person even before they had put on the armor. He wanted to blame himself for not seeing this coming, in a way he probably did and figured he had time. He had already spent too much time building his company from the ground up and through close-to-illegal means in hoping to prepare for the future - and whatever it entailed. Unfortunately, now that part of the future was already here, he was just as lost as the ones caught up in the grand drama unfolding before them.

The fact that none of it made any sense to him, the correlating timelines according to some of his memories that witnessed them through TV was way off from the current situation, it was in a very good way, unnerving. He should have known earlier that anything could and would go wrong. Murphy's Law was absolute in this. No matter what the possible future would be like, they are just that: possibilities of things that may or may not happen in the right order. A part of him wondered if he was the cause of the ripple effect that was now plaguing them.

Buffy, after vehement denials, was the last to believe that facts the witches presented until Angelus went after her mother the next day in hopes to unsettle the young woman. The sleeping-at-the-time Joyce Summers would have died had it not been for the timely intervention of the mysterious appearance of a silver-colored armored stranger the nightlife had begun calling "The Silver Paladin" - who was of course, Xander, out testing his revamped and streamlined Mark Zero at the time.

As for the assassins' guild, so far, there was no news on that end. He just hoped they won't reappear at the worst moment, but he wouldn't hold his breath on that part. As messed up as this timeline was, anything was possible. More than a few of the Starks inside his mindscape mentally groaned, they finally understood why more than a few people hated temporal theory.

However, his appearance in armor itself brought a new round of meetings since he began making his rounds wearing it as often as he could. According to the current consensus Xander had overheard from the group from their last discussion; those not in the know, were undecided if the new arrival was a threat or not. Since the Romany who knew who was inside that armor were back at his warehouse as they weren't invited to this current meeting, this left the young man feeling like a third wheel in the current group dynamics.

A part of him knew he was pulling out of their "club" because he was holding so many secrets, but another part of him wanted to make sure that he would never completely leave them unprotected, even if it was in the form of "The Silver Paladin".

At this point however, adding more fuel to the already volatile fire with his problems will not help in the current situation. Instead, he just kept his mouth shut and left with the excuse go home early before nightfall.

-0-0-0-0-0-

The events that followed with Angelus running amok was enough to take its toll on him as the constant hit and run tactic the vampire kept up drove everyone almost to the breaking point. Xander kept himself busy all through it though. He spent every free waking hour that he had when he wasn't spending his time between patrolling, being a student, and being plain old smart Xander Harris with his friends, in rushing the Mark 1 to completion as well as refitting the Mark Zero into something more viable for fighting the undead and demonic. Thank God he built Jarvis first, multitasking the immense projects he currently tackled would have been pure hell.

Around that time, the translation matrix was finished in translating the spell; both clan witches discussed to either repeat the spell, or simply change it to make sure that the demon will never be loose again. Xander didn't mind either way, if all else failed, he still planned on dusting the bastard on general principle alone. This led to Anna making a long distance conference call to the clan head about the whole situation, wisely omitting Xander's involvement at the young man's insistence. The upshot of the overseas discussion was that the Clan head and a select few of their most powerful casters will make the journey to the Hellmouth while the ones already there will attempt to change the wording of the spell to ensure that this wouldn't happen again.

While they waited, Xander had finished the Mark 1 in record time, telling Janna that he would test it over the weekend. When Janna told him that the Mark 1 was too overpowered for this situation, he simply explained the expedience of having something that they didn't need on hand rather than not having it and finding out they would need it later.

"Better to have the nuke around, even though you aren't going to use it to blow everyone to kingdom come before finding out you really have to blow everyone to kingdom come and not have it with you." He said, quoting one of the Stark variants in his head.

He also had Janna swear to him not to reveal of the Mark One's existence to anyone under any circumstances, not even to her cousin until he was sure the short-tempered witch could be trusted.

The Mark Zero – or "The Silver Paladin" armor – they decided; would be enough for everyone to know about.

-0-0-0-0-0-

The rest of the week passed by in normalcy, or as normal as the constant badgering probing attacks Angelus led against them in hope of catching at least one of them off guard. However, this proved fruitless as the mysterious Paladin was somehow always there. Take, for example, the incident when Buffy was at the hospital because of the flu, which, for some unexplained reason, got past her slayer healing.

Angelus had snuck into the ward where her bed was located with the intent of finishing off the mockery her group had made of him, but when he was about to wrap his hands around the blond slayer's neck, an armored gauntlet wrapped around his and threw him off her open window. Groggy from medication, she woke up, but could do nothing as she watched as the Paladin punched Angelus on the face on the way down and punted him towards a row of thorny hedges before the armored being flew off in a different direction. Buffy decided that it was all a dream, and shuffled back to her bed to sleep.

After a while, the gelled vampire decided to lie low for a time until he came up with a way to effectively deal with the new threat that was more dangerous than any slayer he ever faced. That was fine with Xander, though, as it gave him enough time to make sure the Mark 1 was fully operational while waiting for the Kalderash Clan entourage to arrive; hence upon it's completion, his donned it one early Saturday morning for his first secret test flight into space.

-0-0-0-0-0-

"Onboard flight controller, online." Xander called off as he started the completed Mark 1 for the very first time. "Starting boot up sequence: Zero-point Micro-cluster Arc Power Modules one through five engaged. Start the count, Jarvis."

"Check," Jarvis replied. "Main cluster one, online. Cluster two, online. Cluster three, online. Cluster four, online. And cluster five, online. All systems show green across the board, sir."

"Excellent," Xander said, "Shut down modules two through five and leave the main Arc module online. Stabilize power grid interface on all systems to lessen the bleed effect discharge. Activate and sound off on primary and secondary combat/defense systems."

"Check," Jarvis said, "Palm repulsors online; Chest repulsor cannon online; shoulder mounted F.A.S.T.A.P. micro-bullets online; starburst flares online; ablative energy rotator shield online; counter-encounter phase and electronic jamming system on standby and online."

"Very good," Xander said, pleased that the combat/defense check went smoothly. "Sound off on propulsion and encounter systems this time."

"Check," Jarvis said, sounding off on the last essential systems. "Repulsor boost jets activated and online; Anti-grav flight shield online; oxygen extractor online; vision enhancers online; translation and communications matrix online; onboard medic helper online; digital media player and library online; auto-pilot online and on standby, passive structural shell regulator and nano-tech self repair system on active standby."

"Inaugural boot up sequence; complete." Jarvis intoned. "Now making adjustments for fast boot up of all systems, sir, the Mark 1 is now fully operational."

Xander took a deep breath inside the armor; every single part of his psyche was burning to see what lay out there since the start of the project. This was it, he thought. After being without a true armor for so long, it felt like welcoming an old friend home. The personalities within his mindscape felt a deep sense of satisfaction and peace no liquor-induced nirvana could ever hope to match.

This was his destiny since that ill-fated night that brought them all together. Destiny was about to take a new turn, for God help them, Alexander Harris was now at the wheel and unlicensed to drive.

"Let's do this." He said; stepping into the launch bay the he had installed for his discreet comings and goings in armor that was aimed towards the desert.

Another piece of the armor was there waiting for him by the launch bay. The unit was designed like a metal backpack that could clamp onto the back of his armor; it was simply labeled "Pulse Booster X1".

-0-0-0-0-0-

A moment later, a muffled sonic boom echoed across the desert closest to Sunnydale as Xander took flight formally for the first time as an Iron Man.

For the first time since he could ever remember, he felt free.

"Let's see what's out there." Xander said with a wide grin, "Begin calculations for escape velocity vectors, drop CEP shift and start pulse jamming on all frequencies other than our own."

"Vector calculations done." The onboard version of Jarvis intoned as the A.I. modified the passive shields around the armor for orbital thrust. "All systems cleared for orbital escape. Flight paths clear."

"Let's go!" Xander roared as the Pulse Booster along with his boot jet repulsors flared and his speed started climbing past mach four.

-0-0-0-0-0-

The roar of the wind beat around the passive shields that protected the armor from extreme pressure, as well as from temperatures of heat and cold. Xander concentrated on angling up on his flight vectors, hoping to make the orbital escape run as smooth as he possibly could on the armor's maiden flight. The strains of "Inama Nushif" playing in his mp3 speakers beat in time to his mad flight.

He raised his arms ahead of him, fists clenched in defiance as gravity tried to exert control over the escaping human who dared leave its native world, Xander increased his power output and activated two more arc power modules that gave him more thrust.

After what seemed like an eternity, but was in fact, less than ten minutes; Xander burst free of the Earth's atmosphere and started a lazy loop to face the world of his birth. Struck by the beauty of his home world from this height, he was reminded of the scene he saw from the first Superman movie with Christopher Reeve as he unintentionally mimicked the motions the actor did in his loop to face the northern hemisphere of the United States of America.

However, contrary to most of the picturesque quality artists and cinematographers that portrayed the earth in its pristine splendor; the orbital space around him was crowded with satellites from every major super powered nation that could afford the technology. He even spotted at least over a dozen spy satellites alone in one sector.

He smiled inside the helmet, from up here; there was no sign of the earth being in crisis. From up here, everything was at peace. With the world below him arrayed in all it's glory as it showed none of its scars, the feeling of euphoria bubbled its way out of him as he shouted in joyous release. He spread his arms wide and reveled in flight, making a lazy path through the satellites.

He tore his gaze from the world of his birth, and turned his attention to the stars beyond them. Eyes wide, he was in awe of the grand vista before him. Every gas particle and stardust that was visible to the naked eye created unimaginable colors; the scientific part of him knew that most of it comprised the thinnest upper atmosphere that covered the earth that was visible inside the armor's lens readout. Beyond that lay the vastness of space, with his back towards the planet, he let his eyes roam the immense endless firmament. The child that still lay within the changed man named Alexander Harris sprang up as his eyes slightly moistened.

"So this is heaven." He said softly.

"And as I dipt into the heavens, as far as the eyes could see. And saw the beauty of the world, and saw the wonders of what could be." he said as he paraphrased one of Lord Tennyson's poems when he looked back down towards earth. Xander smiled as he realized that Tennyson might have written something else entirely if he had been made aware of the supernatural in his time.

He shook his head clear of those thoughts, then turned his gaze back out again into the stars.

"A rose with thorns to match." he said softly.

-0-0-0-0-0-

His introspective musings stopped short as an incoming transmission from Jarvis diverted his attention from space.

"Sir," His loyal A.I called, "You asked me to alert you if there was any change in Miss Kendra's condition."

"Go ahead Jarvis," Xander said, his mind going back to the events prior to his arrival in space.

"The estimated time for her revival is at hand," Jarvis reported, "The medications within her system has run it's allotted course. The last scheduled treatment for her spinal injury have completed its final phase. The stasis chamber she was in for the last treatment registered cerebral activity complementary to someone beginning to wake up."

"Okay, I'm on my way back," Xander said, "Please let Janna know so she and her cousin will be there the moment Kendra is awake."

Taking one last look at the beckoning stars with longing, he angled his armor downwards and started his descent.

"I'll be back." He promised; but not until he made sure to finish what that soulless, vampiric moron started.

-0-0-0-0-0-

To Be Continued...

-0-0-0-0-0-

A/N: It took a while to write after a few revisions, I just hope it turned out well. As usual, I might go back and do a rewrite if the bugs are still evident. I hope this meets with everyone's approval.

The Mark Zero looks like the Mark 2 from the movie. The Xander Mark 1 on the other hand looks like a cross between Iron Man Extremis armor with the movie version Mark 3 head.

Also, the song "Inama Nushif" came from the movie series "Children of Dune" which I blatantly borrowed without permission to match his test flight. I know the movie came out around 2003, but who is to say I changed the timeline and moved them all up to be closer to our time? Or simply had the movie released earlier? lol -- "Inama Nushif" was sung by Azam Ali. Just try listening to the song while reading the part of him going into space... see how that turns out.

-0-

The song that Xander was playing in his mp3 player while escaping orbit is "INAMA NUSHIF" -- WRITTEN AND COMPOSED BY BRIAN TYLER and SUNG BY: AZAM ALI.

-0-


	9. Chapter 9

XANDER HARRIS: THE IRON TAU'RI  
By:"Gunsmith3000"  
Started 5-19-08  
Completed: ??

Disclaimers: Nothing belongs to me other than this insane idea I have that just won't let go. Iron Man belongs to Marvel, Stargate SG1 belongs to Paramount. Buffy belongs to Joss Whedon.

Summary: Xander goes as one of his favorite marvel comic characters, but gets more than he's bargained for.

-0-0-0-0-0-

"For Whom The Bell Tolls"  
(Part 1)

-0-0-0-0-0-

Kendra, upon waking up, felt like she was wading through a very dense fog. When she opened her eyes, she noticed that she was in an unfamiliar room. It was full of bright, but soft lights. A sophisticated looking monitor stood by her bed, the flat glass display showed a digital readout of her vital signs. Despite the fatigue that still hung over her, she tried to move her legs and that was when she knew that something was wrong.

She could barely feel them, as if they were just dead weight.

Panic surged within her as she stared in horror at the sheets that covered her lower body. With trembling hands, she lifted the sheet to see if her legs were still there, and breathed a sigh of relief the moment she saw them. However, they were incased in a bulky, glass-like case that ended up to her waist with her lower body immersed in a bluish gel that covered them entirely.

She tried moving her legs once more, but still got no reaction. After a while of fruitless effort, she fell back down and fought off the tears that threatened to come from her eyes. She knew that her legs where there, her mind knew that her legs where, she could FEEL her legs there - so why couldn't she move them?

She was broken.

She was useless.

She didn't hold back this time as the tears fell now in torrents as her world diminished into one single word: useless.

She was barely aware that the door that led to the outer infirmary opened and two women entered. One of them gasped once they caught sight of the crying slayer. Janna rushed to her side and enveloped her in a motherly hug while the other followed soon after.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Anna watched as the dark Jamaican Slayer folded into her younger cousin's arms. She felt torn between anger, helplessness, and sympathy. Taking a few steps towards the two, she reached out and automatically hugged them as well; a small part of her wondered where the young warrior that owned the facility had gone to at this hour.

As if in answer to her unspoken query, the young man in question entered the room, a tentative look on his face as he carried a transparent clipboard. Anna disengaged from her cousin as she noticed that he was wearing the skin-tight suit underneath the lab coat and guessed that he must have been out wearing the armor that the demons have begun calling "The Silver Paladin".

"Foiled Angelus again?" she asked, noting once more that suit he wore left little to the imagination.

"Nope, he's not moving tonight." Xander half-lied while he activated the glass clipboard, "I was doing some performance tests on the armor."

Anna went over to him and observed from his side; fascinated as the clipboard lit up and showed information similar to the monitor that sat beside the bedridden slayer.

Xander ticked off a few commands on the intelli-glass board and surfed through the medical readouts. Letting Anna see the progression from the time Kendra first went under the knife until the moment she started waking up.

"Interesting toy," she commented.

"Yep," Xander agreed. "It's of my own design. See the thick top and bottom edges?"

At her nod, he continued. "The touch-screen glass is made from solid transparent fiber-weave optic blocks. Both of the opaque edges serve as ports for light to pass through and thereby create a flat-sized holographic image. The top portion has the send and receive portal – sort of like a localized cell phone without the hang-ups – that connect to the Cray mainframe in this building and anything else in range that linked up with it. The bottom port housed the power supply and CPU, the power is good for twelve hours without recharging. The entire unit is drop proof, shock proof, scratch proof, and almost bulletproof. To top it off, it has eighty gigs worth of free memory."

"Impressive." Anna said, "You've kept track on her recovery with that thing as well? The monitor beside her bed simply showed the up-to-date live scans."

Xander locked the screen on the clipboard and stared at the older witch thoughtfully. "You have a medical background?"

The woman nodded. "I'm an accomplished medical doctor under my legal name: Anna Katrina Calendar. I come in from time to time with Janna and kept an eye on Kendra in regards to her treatment as it progressed. What you've done here is very radical, not to mention unheard of."

The two stopped talking as they both noticed that the other two of the room's occupants were now listening to them.

"Oh," Xander said as he blushed. "Sorry, I got a little carried away a little bit. My name is Xander Harris, by the way. The lovely lady beside you is Jenny Calendar, and the equally lovely lady beside me is her cousin, Anna Calendar."

Both witches in question beamed at him at the unexpected praise while Kendra nodded at each in turn while she composed herself. "My name is Kendra."

Xander nodded, unlocked the screen on his intelli-glass clipboard and moved closer to her. "All right," he began. "I know you have some questions, but first off, we already know you're a slayer."

When she paled, he continued. "You are perfectly safe here, only the three of us know you're in town other than your Watcher, who of course, doesn't know where you are."

"Where am I then? Am I a prisoner?" she asked in a calm voice.

"No, child, you are not." Anna said, "You are a patient at his facility. Due to the almost fatal injuries you suffered at the hands of a master vampire and his cronies, he brought you here to heal."

Kendra shook her head as she tried to remember the events that led her to this situation, unfortunately, it was all a blur except for feelings of intense pain.

"Is this why I cannot move my legs, sir?" she asked in a small voice that caused Janna to hug the young woman again.

"In a way," Xander said bluntly. "That is correct. You would have died soon afterwards without the proper medical help you would have gotten at the local hospital. Even if you did somehow survive with slayer healing alone, there was a possibility that you would be a paraplegic for the rest of your natural life."

"Den what has happened to my legs?" she said as they all took in the way her legs were incased in transparent plastic and gel.

"Well," he answered. "Since you were losing a lot of blood, I had to put you into stasis. Then, not knowing what else to do at the time, I performed a radical type of surgery to try to save your life. You see the skin-tight suit I am wearing?"

Kendra looked at him, curios at the sudden topic change. Then she blushed as she saw how much the suit he wore under the medical smock wasn't hiding. "Yes sir."

"Okay," Xander said, "This suit is made from programmable nano-mesh weaving. In other words, nano-machines – that means very, very, very, tiny and semi-intelligent machines – linked together to help regulate my body from certain things it cannot cope with. You understand?"

At seeing her nod, he went on to explain in more detail, that he used the same kind of technology and altered a few of the remaining nanites available in storage to help restructure her fractured spine and rib cage. He thought that the operation was a success.

However, when he later found out that Kendra was a slayer from Janna, he had to rush Kendra back into stasis because he knew that slayer healing would bring complications to the finished operation. Once he got her back into stasis, he had the witches come up with a way to place a temporary block on her slayer abilities until she had completely recovered. The contraption that encased her legs was just a precaution to make sure her lower body kept still until the post-surgery treatments were complete.

Both witches nodded solemnly at Xander's reasoning. Anna was still in awe at the young man before her, that someone that young was that skilled in surgery was something like out of a TV or movie. The fact he also used actual working nanites – supposedly the next big step in medicine – to complete said surgery, was unreal. During the time she visited the sedated slayer, she had noticed there was an extra set of readouts aside from the usual medical readings one would normally associate on a patient inside a hospital. Curious, she queried Jarvis on what they meant. After the impromptu lecture from Jarvis was over, she gawped like a fish out of water when she learned that the extra readings were information concerning the nanites' rate of progress. She stepped up her visits thereafter, not wanting to miss the technological miracle happening inside the unconscious girl's body.

-0-0-0-0-0-

"Will I still be able to walk, sir?" Kendra asked, confused at the barrage of information about her surgery.

"Yes." Xander replied with confidence, "Your body has been responding well to the treatments. All that is left is physical therapy to help you regain your lower body motor-functions. There will be some residual pain at first since your nervous system will still be adapting to the repaired bone structure. When the ladies take off the spell dampening your slayer abilities, you'll be fine after a few days."

Xander's smile was infectious when he finished that Kendra brightened up and started smiling as well. Then the young man suddenly turned serious a few seconds later.

"But that's not the real problem." He said.

They stared at him and each wondered, "What now?"

"The process that kept you alive and well took about more than a week." He said, his eyes never breaking from Kendra's gaze. "A lot has happened in between. During that time while you were under stasis; from what I gathered from your Watcher when I attended the last Scooby meeting, he had declared you dead when he told us that the slayer essence had called another girl elsewhere."

For a dark skinned young woman, her pallor faded drastically as the blood drained from her face at the news. After a long, tense silence, she closed her eyes and fell back into the bed in a dead faint.

Xander winced at the pun his peanut gallery supplied. Dead faint, indeed.

Both Romany witches hit Xander at the back of his head in exasperation at how he handled it and made him drop the clipboard.

"Way to go, genius." They told him in 5.1 surround sound as they hit him with enough force to plant his face into the floor.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Angelus was getting desperate. No matter what he did or where he went, that damned Silver Paladin would always show to stop him.

He didn't know how that was possible, but that tin-platted walking sardine can was always there at the right place and at the right time. Because of that, it rankled the literal hands-on vamp to no end that he was forced to use more minions than he would have liked. Unfortunately, once word got out about how The Silver Paladin kept making a fool out of him; most of the younger vampires in Sunnydale took him a little less seriously with each defeat. The fact that the rest of the demonic community were scared shitless of said armored being since he had appeared made matters worse. Not even those Terrakan assassins were of any help.

He didn't even want to remember the damned Saddie Hawkins incident. Bad enough that he was formerly cursed with Liam's soul, the ghost from that dance possessed him long enough for him to get a taste of that sickly feeling again.

His only hope now lay on the research material for an old demon bound inside the statue that he had recently acquired. He had spent too much time and effort doing the translations alone to stop now. He absentmindedly kept scratching the back of his head and neck while he continued working.

For some reason, it kept itching from time to time since his first encounter with the armored jackass when he tried to kill the gypsy bitch and her friend.

"Hmm," he said as he felt the back of his head. "I need to go shopping for a different gel brand, or maybe change my shampoo. I think one of them gave me allergies. Can an undead get allergies? Heck, I'll take a break for now."

"Style," he thought as he headed out, smoothing his hair and his leather jacket. "You can't be an undead scourge without style. And style, don't go well with dandruff."

-0-0-0-0-0-

Jarvis recalibrated the nanites that he moved and sequestered inside Angelus' optic nerves via long range remote as the microscopic machines took a picture of the current page from the tome Angelus was translating and activated his own translation matrix. Then the A.I. started doing it from scratch, not wanting to rely on the work the master vampire was doing in case he was wrong. It would take a while, but the A.I. was confident it would be able to finish the translation before the vampire did.

Since Angelus was going out, he powered up the alcove where the Mark Zero lay and notified Xander to be on standby alert in case the undead scourge did anything foolish that required the attention of The Silver Paladin.

While Jarvis allocated Angelus's moving signature under automated tracking, the trusty system started an online background search on the entire Kalderash entourage that had just arrived at the Los Angeles International Airport as per Xander's request.

Once done, he downloaded all available files and compiled them into dossiers for Xander's perusal. He scanned the med bay and decided to give it to Xander later after his young creator got his face off the medical bay floor.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Thor shook his head as the current ship he was on broke earth orbit and left for Asgardian space. He had come to Earth as per standard procedure to monitor the Tau'ri planet from time to time without the knowledge of the SGC to make sure Earth was progressing at a normal rate. So it was with great confusion for him and his crew to find an anomalous energy reading that should not even be there at Earth's current rate of technological development. Judging from the data scans they took of the elusive source, it was comparable to their own. Maybe even on par to Lantean in origin. But it was raw somehow, still unrefined.

Could it be that there are other races that are "keeping an eye out" for the Tau'ri? Thor couldn't say for sure as he and his brethren knew, that aside from the Ascended Ancients, they were the only ones with the technological level that had a chance of creating such an energy source. Curious, he ordered a discreet scan on the SGC and found that the humans had changed their base's operating system. Intrigued, he ordered a system copy from the parent company that created the software to deliver one to a post office box he had recently acquired solely for that purpose. Once the disc arrived, it would be a simple matter of beaming the data onboard when they came back in a few days.

That done, he turned his attention back to the puzzling data concerning the mysterious power source and sent ahead an inquiry back to their homeworld. He decided not to alert the SGC this time as it seemed that they were also unaware of this new mystery. The gray alien had an illogical hunch that whoever or whatever it was, was there to help.

So until proven otherwise, they will adopt a "wait-and-see" policy while they tried to get as much data as they could on this new wrinkle. And if it was indeed there to help the humans, maybe an alliance could be forged as well.

-0-0-0-0-0-

TBC

-0-0-0-0-0-


	10. Chapter 10

XANDER HARRIS: THE IRON TAU'RI  
By:"Gunsmith3000"  
Started 5-19-08  
Completed: ??

Disclaimers: Nothing belongs to me other than this insane idea I have that just won't let go. Iron Man belongs to Marvel, Stargate SG1 belongs to Paramount. Buffy belongs to Joss Whedon.

Summary: Xander goes as one of his favorite marvel comic characters, but gets more than he's bargained for.

-0-0-0-0-0-

"For Whom The Bell Tolls"  
(Part 2)

-0-0-0-0-0-

To hell with this, Angelus thought as he threw the latest attempt at translating the information about the damned statue towards the nearby wall. He should be out there causing mayhem, not doing homework.

He screamed in impotent frustration.

He was a Master vampire known throughout the world as the spearhead of four Master vampires in their own right as the Scourge of Europe. Wherever they were, whatever they did. They would always leave more terror, more suffering, and more chaos the likes never before seen in their wake. Yet here he was, almost seemingly herded and caged in the one place where he could have held court.

All thanks to one fucking armored lunatic no less!

Before, it took a freaking mob back in the old days for hell's sake!

The master vampire stared at the wall clock, thinking. It was still mid-day and no vamp was sane enough to go around town at this hour even if they were awake. A plan trickled into his head as he kept going back and forth from the clock to the remains of his unsuccessful attempts at translating the ancient text. It was risky as hell, but after that idiot in armor showed up, just about anything in this town was. He growled and roused what remained of his minions and headed for the sewer entrance that had access to the Sunnydale Library.

Unable to cope with his current situation, his patience had finally run out.

-0-0-0-0-0-

While Angelus left to gather his remaining canon fodder, the bedridden slayer was coming to back at the med bay situated under the Pal-Core Industries main warehouse.

"Am I Dead?" The Jamaican slayer's voice was barely above a whisper as she said this once she had regained consciousness.

"No," Xander said in reply from where he sat beside her bed, he sported a sizable bump near the rearmost part of the top of his head. "You're very much alive thanks to the efforts of the witches behind me and the surgery I performed on you."

"What will happen to me now?" Kendra asked when she remembered why she had fainted. "Will I still be a Slayer?"

The trio shared a look before Xander replied. "The choice is yours. You have new possibilities open to you at this point. Although, I'm sorry if I sound cruel when I say this, but going back to the Watchers is not an option you should consider. From what I understand from my observations and from the conversation I had with Jenny and Anna while you were resting, you have been bred into the life of a Slayer since you could walk, correct?"

"Yes, sir," Kendra replied, "I was an orphan found by the Council and trained along with the other potentials. We learned the art and wisdom of the war against the darkness. Each of us prepared to the fullest for the time when one of us will receive our calling. The moment I was called; I did the best that I could to honor the Slayer Legacy."

Xander raised a hand for attention, a neutral look passed over his face. "In any of your training, were you guys given any backup whatsoever?"

"The Slayer works alone," Was her reply, "With only her Watcher to guide her in her chosen duty."

Xander's lips pursed as he tried to clamp down on the feeling of growling. He held out on some vague hope against what he heard from Giles and confirmed from the witches behind him.

Both witches behind the young man just nodded in silence, they had already told Xander that much. The Kalderash Clan and the Watchers had always treated each other with open animosity ever since they could remember. When Xander had tried to ask for more details, they only replied that they had some dealings with the Council before. That one of their own was a Slayer, and that the Watchers tried to take that child by force.

Shaking his head, Xander leaned in close towards Kendra; an intense look had come over his face when he spoke again.

"You have a choice. That ends if you come and work with me." He said, "I will do my best to give you the chance to survive. With me, you will NOT be a dispensable tool to fight alone against the darkness. If you so choose to continue on being a Slayer, I will help you live, and I will give you the tools in which to do so."

"And what of the Council?" she asked, "They will find me."

"My lovely associates and I will help you on that as well." Xander replied, "To them, you are dead since another Slayer has already been called. In a few days, I can have Jarvis do a virus injected search on any electronic data they have on you. Janna, and hopefully Anna as well, will help erase or destroy everything else by magic if at all possible. After that, it should be easy to help you set up a new identity and make it ironclad."

"Xander," Janna interrupted, "What do you mean you'll give her tools? According to you, your armor is bio-neural encoded to your unique status, so only you could use it."

Xander looked at Janna and nodded, "Correct." He replied, "If Kendra accepts my offer, I'll give Jarvis the go-ahead to start production on a separate line of suits for her. Jarvis; please activate the wall screen and display the S.A.B.R.E. line model zero."

"What's S.A.B.R.E.?" Janna inquired.

"Slayer Armored Battle Response Equipment." Xander said by way of explanation.

The bare wall at the on the far side of the room came to life as it became a huge wall screen. Kendra and the two Romany saw an armor that barely had any resemblance to the one Xander wore. It had a sleek design that clearly indicated that a female would be wearing it judging from its general outline. The helmet had a slightly oval design that looked more like a motorcycle racer with small protrusions at the top, making it almost bat-like in appearance. The chest area had an inverted triangle rather than the circular one that the Silver Paladin sported. The rear area of the chest plate also had a backpack attached that was obviously some sort of weapons and ammo storage unit. On top of said backpack were two ominous devices that were clearly weapons of some sort, the one on right that sat behind the shoulder was a barrel-shaped tube and the one behind the left shoulder was a square box of some kind. The backpack, according to the schematic, was also removable and can receive the Mark 1's pulse booster attachment for orbital escape should the need for such a mission arrive. The armor that covered the forearms appeared slightly larger than normal as they housed retractable adamantium short swords attached to the top of each arm for close quarter melee. As feminine as it looked, the armor was downright intimidating. The color scheme even added to the menace; it was mostly dark grey mixed with silver at certain areas.

"Ladies," Xander said with aplomb. "I present The War Maiden."

Kendra stared at the image, entranced, as if the armor was calling to her.

"I accept." She said.

"Excellent!" Xander smiled, as did the two Romany. "Jarvis; get the ball rolling and activate search pattern rewrite of subject named 'Kendra' in any and all related electronic Watcher database and any other database matching said data."

"Understood, sir," Jarvis responded out of thin air, causing Kendra to flinch since she couldn't sense anyone else other than the three before her. "However; I would like to announce that the Kalderash contingent have arrived and are on their way to Sunnydale as we speak. At current travel time, they will arrive in the afternoon."

"You two better get ready and advise them to meet us at the renovated CRD facility." Xander said, directing his gaze at the two witches, who nodded in response.

"Kendra," He said, this time speaking to the bedridden slayer. "I'm sorry for cutting this short. But the vampire that masterminded the attack on you and Janna is still on the loose and her family was called in to help deal with the situation."

"Why?" she asked, curious as to why an entire family had to be involved.

Xander exchanged glances with the two older women. "Up to you two if you want to fill her in on a private matter, I'm going to the computer lab to check up on something and then we have to get ready. Excuse me, Kendra, but I have to go. It's not my place to tell you even though part of their problems do run alongside mine at the moment. I'll see you again later tonight."

With that, Xander left the three women in the med bay and headed to the computer lab for the data he had Jarvis collect.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Once he had finished reading the files, he left the warehouse base in the refitted Zero armor for a quick errand.

It seemed that Angelus had run out of patience and had become suicidal. From the readings Jarvis took sent via the nano-probes that were still inside the vampire, Angelus had gone to the Sunnydale High library using the recently discovered (for Xander, anyways) underground tunnels presumably to kidnap Giles in an attempt to force the Watcher to translate the information in regards to the statue that Jarvis had told him about last night.

Activating a few select probes he left inside the library a few days after Angelus reared his ugly head instead of Angel; he performed a quick remote scan of who was currently in the library. The man the Sunnydale nightlife knew as "The Silver Paladin" was dismayed to find that most of the Scooby Gang was also there. Out of all of them inside the library, Willow was the only one he knew that had the slightest chance of recognizing the armor from the faceplate alone.

Inwardly, he cursed himself for going for the traditional look when it came to the armor designs. Something to think about later on, especially since the Mark I was a blatant give-away with the helmet, as well as the red and gold coloring. He blamed the Starks in his head for that one. He could only hope he could re-modify the damned thing to look different, even if he had to disassemble the entire armor and re-do them one piece at a time. Maybe he could redesign the pulse booster backpack and add them as a permanent addition to the armor as metal wings ala the Endless Waltz anime he saw a week ago.

"Jarvis," Xander commanded inside the helmet as he made an invisible touchdown behind the school building nearest the library. "Reconfigure the stealth cameras to emit a solid projection over the armor on my command, and then run a faux silver head projection facsimile of the cyborg ninja from the metal gear solid game over my helmet. Alter it if you have to fit the contour. When done, add a holographic tabard over my torso depicting a silver cross. Activate them the moment I drop the stealth field projection."

Xander manually adjusted his current stealth field dampening system that kept anyone from seeing and hearing his approach. He cautiously made his way to the library and glided above the heads of the students that passed beneath him. Knowing he was still solid to touch while invisible, he made a slight detour towards the air vents close enough to his size that led towards the inner library.

He grimaced at what he saw, the vent in question was a tight fit and he would have to inch his way towards his ultimate destination. No amount of stealth shielding from his armor would keep him from scraping the walls and make one hell of a racket if he rushed it. He positioned himself dead center inside the vent and let the auto-guidance mini-thrusters do their work as he slowly jetted to where his friends were. A part of him wondered if one of his Starks inside his gestalt mind was claustrophobic. The thought alone nearly cost him as his vision tunneled somewhat.

He could almost see tomorrow's headlines if they caught him:

"EXCLUSIVE: ARMORED PEEPING TOM WITH TOO MUCH LEAD IN HIS DIET GETS STUCK INSIDE HIGH SCHOOL AIR VENTS!"

Just imagining it almost caused him to jerk inside the narrow space as he fought to keep from shuddering in horror.

"Sometimes," he whimpered, "I hate my life."

Forcing himself to take deep breaths, he slowly continued to inch forwards to the opening.

The sounds of a scuffle coming from the library reverberated inside the cramped vent, making Xander throw caution to the wind as he hit the boot jets to increase speed at one-sixteenth power. The sound roared out as the jets complied and nearly deafened him inside the tiny space.

The whole school probably heard that, he thought with a wince.

The resulting crash of his not-so glorious exit had frozen the entire scene in a picture perfect tableau of surprise.

The fact that he accidentally dusted some of Angelus's hired help when he flattened them right after landing on top of them with splintered wood went unnoticed as they took in the sight of something encased in dust-covered silver-toned armor.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Unable to believe what was happening; Angelus felt as if his eyes literally bugged out of his head when the armored thing stood up to its full height.

"What the FUCK are you!?" he yelped and half-whined in shock, "You're EVERYWHERE I go!"

-0-0-0-0-0-

The rest of the Scoobies were just as shocked as they saw the Silver Paladin they had been hearing about clearly for the first time.

Xander, still slightly disoriented from the abrupt landing, said the first thing that came to his mind the moment he saw the shocked vampire.

"Time's up, you're coming with me."

-0-0-0-0-0-

TBC

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	11. Chapter 11

XANDER HARRIS: THE IRON TAU'RI

By:"Gunsmith3000"

Started 5-19-08

Completed: ??

Disclaimers: Nothing belongs to me other than this insane idea I have that just won't let go. Iron Man belongs to Marvel, Stargate SG1 belongs to Paramount. Buffy belongs to Joss Whedon.

Summary: Xander goes as one of his favorite marvel comic characters, but gets more than he's bargained for.

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"For Whom The Bell Tolls"

(Part 3)

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Approximately thirty minutes ago, before all hell broke loose:

Willow absentmindedly followed her friend into the Sunnydale High Library at close to noon on a Saturday, listening to Buffy complain about the injustice being woken up early on every weekend to meet at the library of all places for a Scooby meeting to discuss what happened during the week. A part of her paid attention to what the other girl was saying while the rest were still in turmoil in regards to what she doing last night.

What started out as a simple dare from some of her hacker acquaintances had turned nasty afterwards when she had tried to hack into a new development company's mainframe that had driven every well-known code breaker in the community crazy because of their never-before seen software system.

It was, in a word, unbreakable.

No matter what she did, short of using some of the techniques Ms. Calendar had shown her that involved magic, she had been unable to crack the first firewall. In fact, that was as far as she got even with the help of her acquaintances over the next few hours as they all tried to dogpile the system in an effort to crack it. The firewall was a thing of beauty as each time they thought that they had cracked the code; it would change instantly afterwards. Sometimes, the change happened while the system was countering the intrusion. They all observed it for a time after repeated failures and noticed that it was always rewriting itself.

The type of system used by Paladin Core Industries was so unheard of; it was as if the whole security system was in a stable, yet constant state of flux. The processing power alone for such a stable rotation, according to what they had been able to see, was off the scale. She decided to try again later using magic when her online friends aren't online to watch her work. It would be hard to explain what she was doing as that was her last resort in being able to crack it. She shook her head to focus on the here and now as Buffy stopped complaining the moment they entered the library. From what she remembered, they were still discussing the swim team turned sub-mariners.

Since Xander rarely joined them these days as he focused on both studying and working, Oz, a recent addition to the gang, filled in to help them on this one. The young werewolf used his enhanced senses in spotting the fish-men and discovered that they gave off a strange scent that made them stand out from regular humans. At first, they were puzzled as to why he started smelling them around the gym. When the screams started coming out of the gym sauna, they found out too late that the rest of the swim team were now infected by an unknown mutagen derived from aquatic DNA. After careful analysis, and a little artful hacking into the gym teacher's background, they deduced that he was the only possible culprit that could have done this. Since they had been unable to find a cure in time, they watched in horror as the entire team transformed.

Giles, despite Buffy's protests, took it upon himself and caught the one responsible. After a heated discussion of what was right and wrong, the Watcher locked him up with the remaining teens still in mid-transformation, effectively sealing his fate.

It was understandable as to why Buffy got into another argument with her Watcher over what he had done the moment they arrived. The second round of their ongoing argument ran for the better part of the hour when all of the sudden, all the blinds and drapes shut, letting the only source of sunlight come down from the skylight situated in the center of the library right over the Hellmouth.

Both Watcher and Slayer stopped in mid-rant as Buffy felt an intense gnawing in her abdomen, by then it was too late. They were surrounded by vampires, and to make matters worse, the lead vampire that stepped out from behind the bookshelf at the rearmost portion of the darkened library was none other then Angelus himself.

"Hello all!" he said jovially, as if simply meeting them down the street after a nice midday stroll, "Did you all miss me?"

Then in a surprising show of speed and agility, he ran forwards and grabbed a stunned Watcher by the neck.

"I have need of your linguistic services." Angelus hissed from behind the struggling Watcher, while quickly backing away from the Slayer's reach as he edged towards the hidden sewer entrance.

"Angelus!" Buffy half-snarled half-screamed.

Then things got weirder as the largest air vent on the ceiling beside Giles's office blew outwards and a dusty silvery shape in armor crashed to the floor – unintentionally dusting a few unlucky vamps that happened to be directly underneath it. Time slowed to a crawl as they froze, watching in astonishment as the being in the dust-covered silver armor rose from the ground. There was no doubt as to who the figure was. There was only one silver armored being whose name was bantered about the Hellmouth of late. Right before them, was none other than the Silver Paladin that they had been hearing about that appeared a few nights after Angel had lost his soul.

They turned from the rising figure to see a stressed out Angelus curse his fate.

"What the FUCK are you!?" Angelus yelped and half-whined in shock, his grip on the Watcher's neck slackening by only a small fraction. "You're EVERYWHERE I go!"

The armored figure, after shaking a bit of the dust off straightened at the vampire's voice. Its glowing eyes glared balefully at Angelus as it barked in an inflectionless, almost mechanical tone.

"Time's up, you're coming with me."

-0-0-0-0-0-

Xander noted, too late, that Angelus had Giles by the neck and amended his words further. "Drop him," he said with force. "Or there will be… trouble."

Unfortunately, all throughout the exchange, Angelus had kept inching his way to the sewer opening and dropped straight down with his hostage while commanding the remaining minions to attack them en masse. The ensuing fight that started helped the vampire escape as he ran like hell back to his lair with his cargo.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Xander was beyond pissed and ground out a command to the others to be on guard after he saw Angelus disappear from sight after ordering his remaining minions to attack. He rolled his eyes inside the helmet, stopping as he noted that the library had a skylight.

"Oops," he thought, slightly chagrined as a thought came to him. "I forgot that the damned library had a skylight. Oh well, what's done is done."

"Everyone in here that considers themselves human," he said aloud as he raised his arms, charging up the repulsors for wide bursts. "Please drop down. NOW!"

Even the Slayer complied as the whine coming from his gauntlets became audible enough for everyone with normal hearing to hear.

Xander stretched out both of his arms sideways while the vampires paused a second too late to consider their next course of action.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Aided by his targeting system and what little luck he had, he directed each blast towards the advancing targets towards center mass. He activated his boot jets and floated over his friends while they hugged the floor, his gauntlets opened up and delivered calculated bursts of repulsor fire that dusted the vampires as he spun in a three hundred sixty degree arc. Soon enough, the library floor had aged dust littering the area, the only evidence that close to a score of vampires had stood there before.

They stared in awe as the armored figure landed not far from them. He scanned them for injuries, finding none but mild scrapes and bruises. He moved towards the opening towards the back of the library to follow the vampire via the beacon he had imbedded inside the back of the vampire's skull the first time they met. The same beacon that had delivered a payload of nano-machines that currently inhabited the unwitting Master Vampire. He paused atop the opening when he heard a voice call out to him.

"Wait!" Buffy yelled, coming towards him with a sword strapped behind her back. "I'm coming with you."

Inside the helmet, Xander blinked as he stared at her.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Buffy jerked to a halt as the armored figure gazed at her in an unnerving manner with its head cocked to one side as its glowing eyes bored into hers. The way it spoke, with no inflection other than cold dispassionate tones made her take a slight step back as she fought the human instinct to run from something close and obviously dangerous as her Slayer senses weren't even tingling when she got near the thing.

"Why?" it said or stated rather than asked. "You are not capable of keeping up with me at the speeds I will employ inside the tunnels. And any further delay will cause more harm to fall upon your Watcher."

"You – you know about that, about us?" She asked, now a little more than afraid of what else the thing in front of her knew. Behind the Slayer, her friends exchanged worried glances as else well.

The armored being simply nodded his head and moved to fall down into the tunnel when she implored again in a plaintive voice.

"Please!" she said, tears falling. "I have to go with you. I have to know..."

Xander stared at her from within his helmet; deep in thought for a long, agonizing second before he made a decision that he might later regret as he grabbed Buffy and flew them both into the tunnel, but not before turning back and barking out a few parting words to those left behind.

As he turned around a tight corner, he sent word ahead to his A.I. and to Jenny that they were about to get more visitors at the CRD meeting place with a bit of information as to why they were heading there in the first place. Giving it some more thought, he had Jarvis activate one of his more secret projects and ordered the A.I. to brief both of the Romany witches in regards to the LMD that would be with them. No reason to give those two a heart attack if they saw two of him, though knowing Janna, she might like that idea.

-0-0-0-0-0-

The ones left inside the library shared a look of confusion, each wondered why the armored individual told them to head for the former CRD labs. None of them knew that the two Romany witches currently residing in Xander's warehouse had warded every single location in Sunnydale that the young man owned.

Not knowing what else to do, they stared at the spot where Buffy and the Paladin had disappeared to before Oz spoke up.

"Uh," the young werewolf said, "We could use my van outside."

As if of one mind, they all ran for it.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Xander was annoyed. Whatever material they used in the construction of the sewer walls near the Hellmouth were seriously messing with his navigation systems. Oh, it was working fine and dandy from the outside; but from inside the tunnel and closer to the Hellmouth made for a different story. As it was, he had to deploy the chase drone he had used to help correct the Mark Zero's navigation system during its early flight tests. It was roughly the size of a baseball and was used as an extra navigational aid to fly ahead of him so he wouldn't smash into a anything, especially now that he carried a passenger with him, Buffy. In fact, the situation was driving him a little crazy as the tangled sensor echoes coming from his in-built navicomp unit considerably slowed their flight until they were clear of the dimensional gate's influence.

Note to self, he thought, must find a way around the mystical interference – if that was what was causing the system malfunction – in case he had to do something like this again. He tried his best to navigate the tunnels safely, so intent in that task that he failed to notice the condition of his passenger as the Slayer looked slightly green under the gills while she hung on for dear life.

Fed up with the way his sensors were giving him grief, he sent a command to the drone ahead of him, there was no way for him to overtake the vampire if he kept this up. When his chase drone spotted a branching inside the tunnel that led to a large enough storm drain, he took it, recalled the drone and blasted skywards once he was out into the open.

Once free from the confines of the tunnels, his systems reset back to normal status. The navicomp plotted the beacon's final destination as the mansion situated in Crawford Street.

Xander shook his head, he should have thought of that in the first place instead of trying to run them down. When all of this was over, he planned to re-train himself to think things through before running off blindly into any given situation.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Buffy clung tight to the flying armored figure as she tried not to barf from the erratic way the thing navigated the tunnels. Her eyes widened slightly as a metal sphere the size of a baseball emerge from a compartment on its back and flew ahead of them, as if guiding them. Sure enough, a few seconds after the sphere was airborne, the armored individual's erratic way of flying evened out a little. A few minutes later, the sphere flew back into the compartment as the Paladin made a slight detour and flew faster as it blasted out of the tunnels and aimed itself skywards.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Once out in the open, Xander activated the ECS field as they flew towards the mansion that the vampire had claimed as his lair.

Time to finish this farce, he thought with a grim smile. He tongued the personal communicator inside his helmet that connected him to Jarvis.

"Are they in place Jarvis?" he asked his trusty A.I. "Oh, and scan the target area for any more surprises I may have forgotten about."

"Affirmative," Jarvis replied, "They are standing by and awaiting your command, sir. At last reported scan, they state that the target and hostage are alone, sir. However, caution is still strongly advised as the hostage seemed to have suffered some injuries."

"Advice noted. Let's do this." He closed the link while he did one more scan personally just to be sure. Satisfied that he had a clear shot, he spoke aloud for Buffy's benefit. "Hold on Slayer. We're going in."

"What? Wait, what are you…." Buffy asked; then her eyes grew wider than it already had when she looked down. "No! No-no-no-no-no…….. AAAAAHHHHHHH!"

Buffy screamed herself hoarse as the Paladin angled upwards on his flight axis, and dove feet first over the roof of a stately looking mansion at close to ninety miles per hour.

Before impact, a transparent shield snapped around the hysterical Slayer's body just as the Paladin's armored boots flared and made contact with the roof. Gravity and inertia did the rest as they smashed through.

They crashed through a couple of floors and when they got to Angelus and Giles, Xander shifted his hold on Buffy and freed one arm to fire a repulsor blast to act as a retro booster to slow his progress through the last floor. As the floor beneath their descending forms blew, he did a quick look around the immediate area.

When he saw that the vampire and Watcher were clear of each other, he sent a command to the nanites inside Angelus to deliver a body-wide system shock to render him unconscious.

-0-0-0-0-0-

For a vampire, Angelus felt winded for the first time in centuries. Not only had his plan to kidnap the damned Watcher had almost failed due to the "timely" appearance the Silver Paladin. Thanks to the silver a-hole, he was out of minions as well as he had used the last ones back at the library.

Beating the tar out of the Watcher wasn't even fun anymore since he kept remembering how he ran like a chicken the moment the armored maniac arrived.

"Huh?" he said aloud, his fist aloft and still prepared to strike the uncooperative Watcher. He turned around, trying to identify the muted whine. "Did I leave the gas on?"

The vampire, with a sinking feeling, knew that he was in deep shit the moment he heard a loud crash echo from up the stairs. He gaped as the ceiling bulged above him and blindly leaped to safety as the ceiling blew inwards as he let go of the Watcher, wood and plaster showered the area where they once stood. The instant he saw the armored boot descending from the top floor, he knew that it really wasn't his day.

He tried to stand up, but for some reason, his legs wouldn't move at all. He managed to wobble as his hands found purchase on the nearby drapes and dragged himself upwards.

"Please," he whispered, almost in prayer. "Just shove the soul back into me. I can't take it anymore."

As if in answer to his plea, his body jerked wildly as the nanites played merry havoc with the vampire's nervous system before releasing him to blessed darkness.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Buffy did three things the moment they landed. First, she literally kissed the ground, wiping her lips afterwards due to the taste of wood and plaster. Second, she thwacked the Paladin behind its helmet for doing what it did to get in, and winced in pain as her hand bruised slightly after hitting the tough metal. Third, she ran to her Watcher to check how he was doing.

After doing all that, she turned to Angelus only to find that the Paladin was already standing on top of the unconscious vampire. Her eyes narrowed as she noticed that the so-called corpse was twitching slightly.

"What did you do?" she asked accusingly.

The Paladin didn't reply, but gave the equivalent of an armored shrug as he moved and ripped a large piece of the destroyed carpeting, and wrapped it around the unconscious former Scourge of Europe. Then he moved to one of the drapes, tore off sections and used it to tie it around the rolled carpet for easy handling and transport. After the armored being finished that chore, it slung the carpet over its shoulder like a bag full of golf clubs, it made him look for all the world like he was going for its next tee.

"Wait," she said, prepping her injured watcher as she too, prepared to leave the place. "Where are you taking Angel?"

For a helmet with no visible facial expression, it gave a very good approximation of looking at her as if she had lost her mind.

"This thing." The Paladin said, the beginnings of actual irritation coloring its emotionless voice. "Is not your Angel, it's a soul-less vampire. Learn the difference."

Buffy was about to retort, but the Paladin lifted one armored finger and continued.

"If I wasn't around to help you," it said, "How long do you think it will take you to take him down? Who will you sacrifice first until you realize that he is not the man you once loved?"

"What?" she mumbled out as her current companion moved towards her.

"Be honest, Slayer." The Paladin continued as he moved closer and ran a discreet scan of the Watcher while he adjusted the rolled carpet on his back. "How many of your friends would he take until you finally went after him to destroy him as per your duty? Would you have your watcher die for you so you can see the truth? Would it be Willow? How about Xander? Or Jennifer Calendar? And what about your mother? In fact, you mother was the first target. But I stopped him from entering your house while you were still at the hospital for your second night there."

She stared at him as her eyes started to moisten with barely withheld tears.

"Who would you choose to lose until you acknowledged the truth?" the Paladin's helmet was now close enough for Buffy to touch. The holographic tabard that covered his chest plate directly eye-level to hers.

"That's not fair." She looked down, feeling the weight of the unconscious Watcher in her arms. "I can't make that decision. There has to be another way…"

"Life is rarely fair, Elizabeth." The Paladin replied, "Especially with such weighty decisions like these. That is why I am making this decision for you, this time."

She looked ready to retort when he continued. "Hear me out; I will help you get back his soul, but you will have to live with the fact that he cannot be who you want him to be. And that some things are not meant to be, because the price is too high to pay."

"But I love him." Her tears now fell free, weaving down her face, to fall upon her Watcher. One armored gauntlet reached out and lightly touched the Watcher's neck, checking for a steady pulse as well as discretely injecting him with medical nanites to help the man recover.

"Then let him go." He said, and in one motion, he scooped Buffy into his armored arms while she held on to Giles's prone form. He made sure that both the Slayer and her Watcher were secure, and encased them in an inertial shield created by low-level repulsor rays then activated his ECS system and lifted off. "That's the best thing you can do when you love someone enough to save them, even from yourself."

"Did you ever let someone go?" She asked as they flew away from the wrecked mansion.

The Paladin nodded in response as more than half of the Stark collective inside his head remembered one very special woman that had always been there for him. Each one remembered an employee, a confidant, a friend, a lover, and to some, a wife. Although Xander never really met any of the many different versions of Virginia "Pepper" Potts, he still felt the loss just as keenly as the ones inside his mindscape felt.

"Her name was Virginia." He said, speaking for the memories that remembered her with fondness.

-0-0-0-0-0-

The Scoobies rang the buzzer on the door of the main research office of Paladin Core Industries. They couldn't believe how much the former CRD laboratories have changed since then. Most of the run-down buildings now looked new, a far cry from their former state of disrepair. One of them; was in the process of undergoing reconstruction as it looked too broken down and risky to be repaired.

After waiting for a few moments, the doors opened of their on volition and a female automated voice ushered them in. As they made their way in, they saw an overhead monitor that showed that they passed some sort of scanner as they saw their picture superimposed with x-ray shots and biometric readings that told whoever was at the end of the monitor that they were alive and as close to human as possible. Willow was lucky enough to spot one of the mini-cams watching their progress retract back into the ceiling. She could have sworn that she saw what suspiciously looked like a small gun port as part of the camera unit.

After traversing a seemingly bare corridor, they came upon a set of double doors that also opened of its own volition. What they saw behind those doors caused them to stop in surprise.

Xander stood there wearing a suit with his arms crossed; a tight smile adorned his lips as a look of expectancy passed over his eyes when he beckoned them in. Behind him, flanking him on both sides were two beautiful older women, the one on his right looked like a super model straight out of a photo-shoot, while the one on his left was one person they thought they knew well.

"Xander?" Cordelia gawped as her eyes raked the customized suit he wore.

"Ms Calendar?" Willow stared at her former computer class teacher.

Oz just stood there with his mouth hanging open, looking uncharacteristically stunned at what his senses were telling him. A quick look from _"Xander"_, and he wisely kept his mouth shut.

"What the hell is going on here?" both younger women exclaimed.

"Yes, we would like to be enlightened on this situation as well." A matronly voice spoke from behind them.

Cordelia, Oz, and Willow turned towards the sound of the voice. The three teens found close to a dozen people there in varying shades of dark clothing while the two women behind Xander gasped aloud and ran forwards to stand in front of the elderly woman at the head of the new group.

"You humble us with your presence, Honored Elder." They said as they got down on one bended knee in respect.

The Kalderash entourage had arrived.

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To Be Continued...

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A/N: One thing I learned while writing this chapter was NOT to set a chapter limit when it comes to a story arc -- I tried to limit the Angelus arc to 3 chapters -- but when I got bored from doing the humongous workload in my RL work (that still needs to be nuked to kingdom come) -- my mind ran away with itself and got a little more creative than usual, hence the arc is now four chapters long. I hope that this part was worth the wait, I'll post the next part up when I am done re-writing it next week if time allows.

As usual, any corrections I didn't spot after constant re-reads the first few times will be fixed from time to time on

And by the way, for those who are asking how is it possible for Xander to be at two places at once is simple, the "Xander" Oz sensed was a LMD (thanks in part from the recovered tech that was used to create "Ted").

LMD stands for Life Model Decoy... its an android body-double that can be controlled from a distance and fed with enough data to really act like the real thing. But since Xander hasn't perfected it yet, a werewolf like Oz can easily spot the difference that Buffy can't due to his higher senses.

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	12. Chapter 12

XANDER HARRIS: THE IRON TAU'RI

By:"Gunsmith3000"

Started 5-19-08

Completed: ??

Disclaimers: Nothing belongs to me other than this insane idea I have that just won't let go. Iron Man belongs to Marvel, Stargate SG1 belongs to Paramount. Buffy belongs to Joss Whedon.

Summary: Xander goes as one of his favorite marvel comic characters, but gets more than he's bargained for.

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img src"i301./albums/nn46/gunsmith3000/IronTauri.jpg" align"center"

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"For Whom The Bell Tolls"

(Part 4)

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While on route, Jarvis had alerted Xander that both the Kalderash group and his own friends were now waiting at the facility. From the picture Jarvis painted, once they were all inside one of the main conference rooms, it seemed that a semi-civil argument broke out between the recently arrived Kalderash entourage against Janna and Anna for getting non-clan members involved with their vengeance.

Xander could only imagine how Anna was reigning in her volatile tempter, he'd seen her blow up often enough during her brief stay. However, Jarvis pointed out that his sensors detected an erratic energy pattern emerging from the raven-haired witch as she struggled with the idea of NOT blowing up some of her relatives for their stubborn pride.

If one were to believe the tone of the AI's voice, he could have sworn that the self-aware system was worried the witch would destroy a good chunk of the main building as it readied the numbers of the repair crews on speed dial.

Xander shook his head as he neared the main building of Pal-Core Industries' Production Center and ordered the AI to open up one of the escape hatches he installed as an easy entrance and egress for his armor.

After he was sure it was safe, he tightened his grip on both of his living passengers, then the Paladin descended.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Inside conference room 48F, the argument between the Kalderash members very nearly degenerated into a full-blown shouting match, when the large relief at the center of the room split apart, then moved to the side and revealed a hidden skylight. The skylight's glass partition opened up for a few minutes and then closed as the relief moved back into place.

This puzzled everyone not in the know as the empty space directly under it shimmered when the Paladin de-cloaked much to everyone's surprise.

Xander touched down and summoned a standard (for his offices anyways) remote emergency medical gurney hidden in one of the rear walls so he can put the Watcher's battered form there.

The Scoobies gasped as they saw the shape Giles was in and rushed forwards once Buffy placed the unconscious Watcher on the waiting gurney that somehow glided close to the armored figure on its own.

Willow simply stared when she saw the undercarriage. The gurney had no wheels for which to move, but was floating above the floor with blue light underneath it. She tugged at "Xander" and pointed at the impossible sight.

The "Xander" LMD smiled and explained that it was one of his "employer's" breakthroughs and was due to be at the exhibited later that year for the medical community. The "Bio-bed", for lack of a better term, was a hoverbed designed to act as a unit for medical and emergency personnel. The current argument forgotten, everyone watched the armored figure as he activated the bed the moment Giles was comfortable. The flat glass-like display at the head of the hoverbed lit up with biometric readings coming from the person lying down on it. Putting in a few commands, the Silver Paladin adjusted the bed's readouts to hide the nano-machine readings that were about to come out. He ordered his LMD to take Giles to the company infirmary and alert his medical staff of the incoming patient. As the gurney and his LMD moved, the armored figure glanced in the direction of Anna Kalderash and wondered if now was the right time for an on the spot hiring. He had ordered Jarvis to gather any information that was available pertaining to both of her identities, and just from reading some of her files, he had a gut feeling that she would be good for the Medical Department. Maybe even good enough to run it.

Anna caught the real Xander staring at her inside the armor and nodded, but got the wrong idea as to what he was thinking. "I'll go with them, make sure he gets the best care while I am there."

Not one to complain when someone offered help, he just nodded. He'd talk with her later about trying to get her to work here as head of the new medical research and production department.

With that chore done, he turned his attention back to the matter at hand. He requested the rest to follow him deeper into the facility that none of the current employees knew about. After several secret corridors and one elevator ride later, the group came to a room that resembled a high tech brig. The Paladin removed the rolled up carpet on his back and none too gently unfurled it inside one of the cells, revealing an unconscious vampire that everyone knew well then stepped outside the cell and activated an energy shield.

The clan Elder gazed at their long time enemy in the silence that ensued with the vampire's unveiling, simply lost in thought. Then she turned her gaze towards the armored being her niece called "The Silver Paladin". The stark, emotionless helm that covered his face revealed nothing but the cool blue-white glow where its eye's were supposed to be. From what her sources had told her, the man-thing before them was fast becoming a legend amongst the demonic community as the one who thoroughly ruined the reputation of one of the most feared vampires that came out of the Aurelius bloodline.

"Why do you do this?" she asked, breaking the silence. "Why go out in armor to fight creatures such as these filth called "vampires"?"

"I could give you the standard line about power and responsibility." The armored man said as he tilted his head in response. "But that would sound too much like something a comic book character said."

"So why then, do you do it?"

"Because," He said, "I want to help where help is sorely needed."

"A white knight," The Clan Elder said, amused because it wasn't just a figure of speech. In the Silver Paladin's case, if his choice of armor was enough to go by, it was quite literal. "Very Interesting…"

Inside the armor, Xander twitched a little, feeling a sense of déjà vu but not sure why.

"Come," He gestured back to all of them, "Let's do this in the conference room where we can all sit down and do this right. I've already recalled Anna and Xander to meet us there once Giles is settled."

-0-0-0-0-0-

Still clad in his armor, Xander offered them drinks while they waited for the return of his LMD and Anna from the infirmary. They were all surprised, however, when not only two people returned, but three instead. Behind them floated the medical hoverbed that carried a very conscious and no longer in pain, but still tired from his ordeal, Rupert Giles.

Xander blinked when they neared him and Anna dipped low enough for his enhanced hearing to hear her as she whispered. "Your medical nanites seemed to work faster and better on a normal human body that wasn't geared with mystical endowment."

The Paladin semi-shrugged, he had forgotten about that little detail when he had only two subjects so far that required nano-machines as part of the healing process. One was an enhanced "him"; and the other had the abilities of a full Slayer with powers that mystically treated anything that invaded its host body as a threat that had to be dealt with, at least until he froze her body in stasis twice to help stem the advanced Slayer healing.

While the rest of the Scooby Gang fussed over the conscious Watcher, he nodded to his LMD and to Anna to take a seat and started introductions to get the ball rolling. Anna sat next to her cousin, Janna, who sat to his right, and his LMD sat on his direct left after it guided Giles's floating bed to stand between Buffy and Janna.

"Okay people," he began, "We're all here today because of one, not-so simple mess that needed fixing. I believe you all know him by many names and adjectives: Angel and Angelus being two of them, The Scourge of Europe, being another as well as the new moniker given to him by a certain employee of mine named Alexander Harris when he called that vampire…"

"…Deadboy." His LMD copy finished the sentence with a large grin on its face despite the fact that Buffy and Willow glared at it in response to the name while some in the Kalderash entourage covertly snickered.

The Elder nodded as she guessed what the armored man was going to say next. "You want us to re-cast the soul curse in keeping with our vow of revenge."

The sound of an electronic snort came from the Paladin. "Yeah right," he said, a fair amount of sarcasm dripped from his modulated voice. "That's just like begging for him to lose it again."

Buffy squawked in anger. "Hey! You promised he'd get his soul back."

"A soul alone does not make someone innocent, or pure, or good, Elizabeth." The Paladin said. "We need something more than just that curse now. A lot of mistakes snowballed into this mess the moment the original casters placed that soul back in him in the first place. The fact it was the Slayer's fault as much as the original Kalderash clan that made this happen."

"And what logic did you come by that one?" Enyos, Janna's father spoke up, incensed at the accusation coming from the armor-plated buffoon in front of them.

"Because, your idea – or at least your ancestor's idea of revenge was sloppy." The Paladin replied.

Cries of outrage came from more than half of the Kalderash present as some of them stood up and began shouting in their native language at the insult. The Elder never said a word as she studied the armored man at the head of the table. She raised her hand for silence, but Enyos didn't take the hint.

"Elder!" Enyos bellowed in anger. "Surely you don't think…."

The silver-haired woman gave him a look that brooked no argument; he paled from the steel in her gaze and sat back down, a bit subdued at the silent rebuke.

"The white knight is right." She said to their everlasting shock. "In our ancestor's zeal for revenge, I believe that they have indeed made a grave error when they included that clause. They considered that killing the demon that murdered the clan's favored daughter was too easy a punishment. They wanted it to suffer as they suffered. If what he said is true, and from what I have heard from Janna and then from Anna, if not for his intervention, it is we that would be reaping the ill rewards that the loosed demon would have accomplished."

"So what can we do now?" A young woman the Elder had introduced as Victoria spoke for the first time. "That was the only curse we have been prepared to cast. In fact, it was for that very reason why were chosen to come with the Elder to this cursed land."

Janna looked askance at the real Xander, who nodded in reply. "When I was given the task of personally monitoring the curse," She said as she stood up and started passing copies of something written in both ancient Romany and in English to all those present. "I took the liberty of taking a copy of the original spell with me to study in full and as a precaution in case something like this did occur."

The Scoobies got their copy and through Giles's explanation of the text and what was at the end of it made Buffy and Willow scowl. The Slayer almost left her seat in anger until few sharp words from the bedridden Watcher told them to wait and see.

Knowing how it would affect the Slayer personally, the real Xander, through remote direct brain link with the LMD, spoke through it. "We had a good reason for doing this, Buffy. Please hear us out later, after that you can get angry all you want after this meeting."

"You have one chance, Xander." She said bitterly. "And if it isn't good enough, your boss better pray I don't find a can opener big enough to turn him inside out. You lied to me, Xander. You told me he wasn't a demon or something."

"He's not." The LMD replied.

"Then explain how he can do all this, huh?" she bit out in anger, "Was this guy the reason why you aren't always around these days? Are you so jealous of Angel that much to help that tin woodsman do this to him, and to me? "

The real Xander inside the armor gave off an imperceptible twinge the same time that the LMD visibly winced at what Buffy implied. The real Xander was glad he was encased in armor; the LMD on the other hand weren't so lucky as it sat next to ground zero.

"Buffy," the LMD broadcasted for its creator, "This had nothing to do with how I felt for you. Yes, while I admit that I did have those feelings. It had no bearing on this. I know Angel and I haven't been the best of buddies, but this is more for him as well as for you. That and I made a promise."

"What promise?" Willow asked. "And to whom did you make it to?"

"Jessie." he answered.

After a moment, the LMD continued to relay what Xander said as it moved closer to the Slayer. "That's one thing the Romany and I have in common, to seek vengeance for someone who died at the hands of a vampire. Yeah, you could easily be part of the reason, but before you, before Angel, there would always be Jessie. I made a promise on his empty grave to make sure that they would all pay, or die trying. And this is the way I chose to do it."

"That and I get to do it in style." He thought inwardly.

That done, "Xander" settled back into his chair and remained silent for the rest of the meeting as the real Xander inside the armor left the LMD on autonomous running..

-0-0-0-0-0-

When the Elder got her copy of the translated text, she gasped after reading it. It was indeed the original curse, but aside from that, it also included another spell that was near the bottom of the page.

"This…" she said as her voice rose above a whisper. "How is it possible that you have made changes to the curse in this short a time?"

"That would be because of him." Anna said, pointing towards the man in armor. "What would have taken us months to accomplish in trying to untangle the syntax took only a couple of weeks with his help."

"As a matter of fact," Janna piped in, "Most of the stuff in the new spell was his idea."

"This could work." Enyos said as he studied the papers more thoroughly, his anger completely gone. "In fact, it's ingenious! A true punishment worthy of a pure blooded Romany!"

"Indeed," the Elder said, smiling now for the first time since she had set foot inside the building. "With this; we can atone for the mistakes of our ancestors when they had cast that spell in one fell swoop. We owe you a debt of gratitude."

"Natch," the Paladin said, "I would call it good preventive measure so this won't ever happen again."

"Very well," the clan Elder said as the whole Kalderash entourage rose up and gave a half bow towards the Sunnydale crew. "We shall prepare ourselves for the spell immediately and begin by nightfall."

"Wait," the Paladin asked, "We have some VIP guest rooms in this building for instances like these. Xander can show you to them if you would like to use them."

"Again, we thank you." The Elder replied, "But I have one request from our host before we depart."

Xander tilted his armored head. "I'm listening."

"We would like to see the face of the man that gave us a future to look forward to."

The reaction to that request varied with the Sunnydale crew. Among the concerned were Anna, Janna, and surprisingly enough, Oz. Cordelia watched with what passed as bored interest, though inside, she was curious as hell about the fastest rising company that her father had been harping about that was also climbing the stock market at an unbelievable rate. Giles, though still tired, had a look of open curiosity. Buffy, they could all see, was barely holding back the impulse to throttle the man once his helmet was off for supposedly deciding the future of her lover. Willow was also curios about the man that had hired her best Xander-shaped friend. While the budding witch in training was upset that Xander hadn't told them the whole truth in regards to his employer, it was tempered by the fact the young man mentioned Jessie. A part of her knew that Xander was loyalty incarnate while they were growing up, his one word reply using Jessie was the truth because she felt the same way. Obviously, Xander had turned that into a drive that he could channel. Although, now it seemed that his loyalty extended to his employer. Someone who was not only the Silver Paladin, but also the man behind the company whose firewall she had a devil of a time trying to unsuccessfully crack.

They waited with baited breath as the armored hands reached up towards the Paladin's helmet.

-0-0-0-0-0-

A soft hissing sound of air escaped when the Paladin moved up to reach the back of his helmet and released the stage one seals. Using both hands, he give it a slight twist as the neck housing detached from the lower helmet magnetic force clamps and slowly pulled the whole headpiece off to reveal a stranger's face.

The handsome face of a man in his mid-thirties wearing a pencil-thin mustache that bore a striking resemblance to a younger looking Duncan Regher greeted them with a smile.

"Satisfied?" the man asked in a rich baritone as he smirked at the Clan Elder.

She took one look at the man, then glanced sideways towards the thing she now knew was a mechanical golem and smirked right back at him. The boy was clever, but so was she. One did not get to be a Clan head by the expedience of age alone, she had time and experience on her side from learning too much and from doing too much.

"Very satisfied." She said, she held out a hand to stop the disguised young man as he was about to give out an alias. Her smirk deepened when she realized that the young werewolf with them knew who was really who as well. She nodded her head again in thanks and respect then allowed the boy's mechanical golem to lead them to their assigned quarters for the duration of their stay.

As they left the conference room, she felt the young man's gaze track her when she telepathically told him, "I know what its like to have secrets to keep our loved ones safe, young knight. But always remember, secrets that are held too long sometimes have a way of coming out when least expected unless you choose the time and the place."

-0-0-0-0-0-

Once they were gone, Buffy rounded on the man in armor. "Who the hell are you?"

"Just someone," He said as he placed the helmet back on. "Who believes that he can try to make the world a better place like your friend Xander. My name is Alex Jarvis."

He held out an armored hand to stop whatever she was about to say next. "Remember what I told you back at the vampire's mansion. I told you I would make this decision for you. I promised to give you back Angel, but I didn't say how or in what form he will return. But I did warn you enough that he will never be the one you want him to be."

"But to do that?!" The slayer shrieked, "WHY?"

"Do you really want him to lose his soul again?" he asked, his voice once again modulated to sound flat and emotionless.

"No." She said, "But…"

"It's the only way, Buffy." Giles rasped as he spoke for the first time from his position on the hoverbed. "As much as I am worried about this whole affair, the new spell he helped create makes sure that situations like this will never happen again when it comes to Angel."

"Look," the Paladin said. "We're not going to stand in the way if you two should pick your relationship back up to where you both left off. Though you have to remember that at the end of the day, or night, or whatever, he will always be a vampire. That's what the two of you will have to live with. You have a choice to do what's wrong and right after this, and so does he. But you have to know that should he step out of line, I'll be there to stop him because I know you won't until it's too late."

He excused himself, said that he needed to fly to Los Angeles to pick something up and left them to their thoughts. A part of him wished that he could drink himself stupid over this, but forced himself not to. He thought about what the clan Elder said and decided that it was high time for the real Xander Harris to take over the company rather than hide under an alias as its "new" owner.

That would mean that the fake identity of "Alex Jarvis" would have to die soon, and leave everything to his adopted heir, namely himself. Under the ruse that he was heading for L.A., he flew to his warehouse headquarters to get things started. He would have to brief Janna on his plans later on, maybe Anna too if she accepts his proposal.

Too many lies in one day, he thought. Now he understood why and how Nick Fury did the things he did and was able to live with it, he fervently hoped that he won't end up just like him. Yet he couldn't shake the feeling that he already did because he felt like such a bastard for doing that to Buffy and Angel.

It was also eerie the way that the Starks in his mind remained silent throughout the whole affair.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Night fell quickly in Sunnydale as they met up back at the holding cell that held the still unconscious vampire.

"We ready?" Xander said, having appeared in armor again while his LMD stayed by his side.

"We are." The clan Elder replied as they started making the ritual circle around Angelus once the force shield barring his cell was down. "And we have also studied your curse variant in greater detail and realized a danger that we did not know that also existed in the original one. We believe it may have carried over and changed in a way we cannot predict."

Xander nodded, he knew that a spell like the original one they used to curse Angel with the first time did indeed have a price if done solo. Though the new one was a variation of the same spell, even with his knowledge in regards to the art thanks to one of his memories, he still had no way of knowing what would happen once the spell worked its magic.

In essence, this was a very literal trial by fire.

"We are ready, Lady Rosa." Enyos said as he, along with his daughter, Janna, joined the rest of the Kalderash present as they surrounded the ritual circle.

The Elderly woman nodded in reply, but she turned back to the Paladin to whisper so only he could hear.

"May you and those within you help you in the times to come, Defender of Mankind, for I fear that you will soon be thrust to the forefront of a battle that is greater than you have imagined." She smiled at the way the armor stiffened. "Never lose sight of the things that matter most as history unfolds around you. Also, don't worry too much about any mistake you may make along the way, I know you will do all of us proud. So please, watch over all those you cherish, especially my niece, Anna, and her cousin. Help them, and they will also help you."

Xander stared at the woman, his Stark collective in total shock at what she knew. She took one last look back at the immobile Paladin and smiled as she joined her family, standing between Enyos and Anna in the circle and started chanting in ancient Romany.

-0-0-0-0-0-

The Scooby Gang watched in silence as the room darkened. The ritual circle started glowing with power as the first few lines of the spell finished. A dome appeared over the still unconscious vampire and bound him within the enchanted circle. A white mist appeared over the supine form, crackling with energy. Elder Rosa stretched out her hands as two glass-like spheres appeared and floated near the circle. The white mist went into the right sphere almost immediately, making it glow bright white. Then, from within the dome, a black mist poured forth from the vampire's body, a far away shrieking sound accompanied it. The black mist dove straight inside the sphere that floated to the left, turning it into an oily black. Both objects started pulsing in time to an imaginary heartbeat as the white one made a clockwise orbit around the dome while the black one went counter-clockwise.

Both spheres sped up in their revolution and entered the dome as the body within it started floating off the ground. Once within the dome, they made the same revolutions around the body until they became a blur. All the while, the Kalderash members present kept chanting, their voices becoming louder until the spheres suddenly stopped in mid-air once the vampire's body floated right side up.

And it was no longer unconscious. Once they saw this, the casters began chanting the last verses to complete the ritual. The pulsing spheres flared once and dove into the body with such force that the floating undead corpse screamed in pain.

Buffy couldn't hold it in anymore as the screams seemed to go on forever, she tried to run in, but was halted by an armored arm as Xander grabbed her in time. She tried frantically to get clear, but the young man inside the armor held on tight, ignoring her cries to let go.

"Calm down, Buffy." He whispered to her, "They're almost done."

Indeed, the drama unfolding in front of them reached a crescendo as the vampire's screams suddenly cut off when the body and the rest of the chanters suddenly froze as if paused by some remote. The Elder dispelled the dome on the circle and stepped inside.

"What the fuck?" Xander gaped, that wasn't part of the spell he rewrote! He instantly brought all of the armor's weapons online as he shoved the slayer behind him to safety.

Rosa screamed a new verse out at the frozen corpse, twice in ancient Romany and then once in English.

"….what once the Creator most high has bound, shall nevermore be broken. By HIS will and decree! Thus I and my soul are witness, SO MOTE IT BE!!"

Eldritch energy blew outwards from the floating corpse as time resumed for the vampire and the chanters, knocking them off their feet. The Elder, Rosa, wasn't affected, but she collapsed once the wave had passed. If Xander wasn't mistaken by the way his sensors were reacting, she was getting older by the second.

Then they all heard her chant out something in Latin that chilled those who understood what she was saying to the core.

She was chanting out last rites.

Hers.

Xander stopped holding on to Buffy and let her run to Angel to see if he was all right. Then the Paladin moved, appearing to have teleported to the Elder woman's side and began pumping out medical nano-machines to try and stabilize her. The whole entourage crowded around her still form as she grew thinner and older.

"Oh my god," Xander said as he frantically tried to move faster, not believing what his nanites were telling him as his readings kept blaring one phrase over and over with each attempt to try and stabilize the old woman.

"TOTAL CASCADE FAILURE", his readouts replied time and time again to his queries. He propped the old woman up and inside a second hoverbed, hoping to make it in time to the infirmary, but stopped as she held out a bony hand against his armored one.

"I appoint," she rasped out with her weakened voice so everyone could hear, shocking them further, "Anna Katrina Kalderash as Clan Head and Elder by rite of succession and Enyos Johan Kalderash as her second. All of you bear witness as I, Rosalind Magdalena Kalderash, twin sister to the soul of Amelia Lucinda Kalderash, beloved daughter of the Clan Kalderash and my sister who was the victim of the vampire known as Angelus; have spoken. SO MOTE IT BE!"

"Guard them well, Lord Knight. My vengeance has been sated. And my journey is now at an end." She whispered as she closed her eyes, and exhaled one last time. Her body turned translucent as she faded into nothing more than wisps of air.

The hoverbed was now empty.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Then they heard a cry coming from behind them, so they turned to look. They found Buffy in a tug of war against someone in a loud suit and wearing a derby hat with Angel in the middle as the rope.

They also saw that a portal was behind the struggling trio, and it was fluctuating rather badly. Further off to the side, near the portal itself, was a statue that Xander knew from the recordings Jarvis had the nanites collect used to have a sword through it.

"Sorry toots," The man wearing the derby hat said as they inched slowly towards the opening. "But a job's a job, no matter how much I was rooting for rat-breath here. He still has to go in."

As they neared the opening, lightning rained down from the ceiling and struck the portal just as Angel went through. Whistler's eyes widened as the vampire went somewhere else, and then a second bolt of lightning struck the statue, completely obliterating it into fine dust, closing the portal. A third bolt struck the ground near the balance demon with the words: YOU AND YOUR BOSSES ARE ON LEAVE AND ON PROBATION STARTING NOW FOR GOING AGAINST MY WISHES.

A fourth bolt smashed into the floor to make sure the balance demon really got the picture: DON'T MAKE ME ANGRY. EVER.

Pale-faced and wild-eyed, the scared balance demon faded from sight and ran back to his employers with his proverbial tail tucked between his legs.

A fifth bolt smashed down this time, causing Xander inside the armor to start yelling about how hard it was going to be to repair the scorched flooring. He shut up as they all saw that the message was meant for them.

BE AT EASE, THE VAMPIRE WAS SENT TO A PLACE WHERE SLAYER SUMMERS WOULD HAVE GONE. IN HER STEAD, HE WILL DEAL WITH A PROBLEM I WISH TO HAVE RESOLVED. HE SHALL RETURN TO YOU IN DUE TIME, BUT FOR NOW, BE WELL.

SIGNED,

FROM THE VOICE OF YAWEH, IEHOVA, HIM, LORD OF ALL CREATION

Xander blinked, not really knowing what to say. It's not every day that you get a real Shock-o-gram from the Head Boss.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Fast forward, to a few months later…

A portal opened inside an alley late at night in downtown Los Angeles. Over a dozen people rushed out, all clad in rags, covered in dirt and soot. The growing number of people coming from the portal slackened until a long- haired man came out. He was pale and covered in non-human blood. A battered sword hung limply by his side as he grunted in pain.

The long-haired stranger lifted his head and they could see the golden eyes peeking below the ridges as he growled for them to flee. The crowd hesitated, feeling strangely obligated to help the vampire because it helped them escape the hell dimension that they had come from.

They changed their minds when they saw one of their giant jailors making a last ditch effort to get back at them coming out of the portal and ran like hell. The vampire saw this and swung his sword, neatly cutting the thing's head off and kicked the rest of its body back into the closing portal.

Heaving a sigh of relief and battle-weariness, the vampire didn't expect the tranquilizer dart that hit him on the right shoulder, knocking him out.

-0-0-0-0-0-

A few days later, in a remote location on the outskirts of Los Angeles:

"Sir, we have found an anomaly in one of the HST we grabbed for study a few nights ago."

"They're all anomalies," Maybourne said as he stared at the pencil-neck that barged into his office. "Be specific."

Before replying, the thin scientist reached over to the Colonel's desk and handed the man a folder regarding their findings. Harry accepted the folder and leafed through the materials, then stopped at one of the x-rays where someone marked it with a silver tab.

"What the hell is this?" he thought.

"We did the usual baseline scans we have accumulated from our gathered data on the others." The man began, and pointed to the x-ray Maybourne was holding. "But when we ran in-depth scan on its person, we found something unusual near the base of its spine."

Harry looked at the x-ray closely and noticed that it was a close-up shot of the spinal cord that showed a small dark circle attached to it. He placed the picture down and looked at the next one, which was a larger blow-up of the item in question.

"Is that some sort of micro-chip?" he asked in wonder. "It looks smaller than usual."

"Yes, sir, the design is quite ingenious." The scientist answered. "From what we can tell, it is active. We tried to run a scan of the chip, or whatever it is, it blocked most of our instruments when we tried to collect more data from it. It also seems to operate on a wave band we are not familiar with; in fact, we were having trouble trying to analyze the band."

"And?" he prodded.

"We made a lot of educated guesses as to its use, but all of that would be mere conjecture at this point." The man said as he gestured for Maybourne to turn the page of the data in the folder.

"Any attempted extraction of the chip had been met with some force." He explained, "We tried to operate but received an electrical shock in return, our guess was that it made use of whatever inner energy the HST used to keep itself alive as a power source. We even went so far as to isolate the HST and bombard it with an EMP, no effect whatsoever."

"There was talk of trying to dust it," he continued. "But since anything on that particular class of HST when worn dusts along with it, it wasn't advisable if we wanted to save the chip."

"So what have you been able to learn then?" the colonel asked, now worried. "Was this even human made or from our friends up in the stars?"

"Well, from what data we do have," the scientist fidgeted a little. "While the technology of the chip is very advanced, it is of human design. That much we were sure of, I am almost afraid to theorize that maybe someone else in our government is aware of this threat."

"Do we have any chance of duplicating the technology?"

"According to what we have," he replied, "We could make a rather reasonable facsimile, but it will take time, maybe a year or two at most. The resulting chip might be, in some ways, inferior to what we saw in that HST. We don't even know what that chip does, so we need more time to study it."

"Not good," Harry Maybourne said as he closed the folder and made a snap decision. "Close it up and pack the vampire for transport out of here ASAP. I don't want to have that thing here longer than we have to in case that chip he's got came with a tracking feature included. The longer that thing is in here, the more it could expose us to whoever is at the other end of that chip."

"But sir…"

"What are you, deaf?" Maybourne all but screamed. "Pack him up and take him back to wherever you found him. Just get him gone! If some other black agency found out that this project snuck past the review board before it could be formally reinstated, we'd all be facing a firing squad."

"Yes sir."

After the scientist left, Harry Maybourne took one more look at the data as he mulled things over. He lifted the phone on his desk and dialed a number, when someone on the other end picked answered; he said a few choice words before immediately hanging up.

"Get me files on people we have with behavioral sciences as part of their background."

-0-0-0-0-0-

To Be Continued...

-0-0-0-0-0-

A/N: whew this chapter took almost forever to write and rewrite as I couldn't fit in some stuff I wanted in -- in fact I may have regressed and made some grammar mistakes simply out of frustration because I actually sneaked this fic on to my workplace pc and kept writing on it whenever an idea struck me. I had an outline I wanted to follow, but it kept pouring out into one long ass last chapter for the Angelus arc. As always, I'll fix it again if I spot any errors or just want to change some stuff in the next few days in F F DOT NET and T T H FAN FIC DOT COM. And no, I did plan the slight "Deus Ex Machina" thing, not because I ran out of ideas -- but in fact its essential to the story later on... what? You think I'd leave Xander as the only one changed permanently by the Halloween fiasco? for now, that tidbit is... a secret.

In any case; when Angel ever makes it back to Sunnydale, you'll all find out just how different the spell perform on him really was... Like it? Hate it? Let me know...

Until next time, Ja ne!

-0-


	13. Chapter 13

XANDER HARRIS: THE IRON TAU'RI

By:"Gunsmith3000"

Started 5-19-08

Completed: ??

Disclaimers: Nothing belongs to me other than this insane idea I have that just won't let go. Iron Man belongs to Marvel, Stargate SG1 belongs to Paramount. Buffy belongs to Joss Whedon.

Summary: Xander goes as one of his favorite marvel comic characters, but gets more than he's bargained for.

-0-0-0-0-0-

"Aftermaths and Supposed Summer Lulls"

-0-0-0-0-0-

Xander looked outside the window in Pal-Core Industries' head office of what used to be the old CRD facilities, deep in thought. A week had passed since the dramatic conclusion behind the events regarding the former vampire and his subsequent hijacking by none other than the Almighty Himself. It disheartened him a little as he knew that it was pretty much status quo on the weirdness meter for Sunnydale. Granted that getting a shock-o-gram was indeed a first, especially since it didn't come from the direction they were more familiar with, namely from below, but from on high.

He snorted, it was as "normal" as one could get, even for Sunnydale. Summer was almost here and he couldn't wait to get some more work done using all that time.

However, another matter for consideration was the fact that right before she died; Elder Rosalind of the Clan Kalderash had revealed to all those present that she was one of the people who was actually there when Angelus first got his curse. From her admission to having had her vengeance sated, and that the last sacrifice was to be hers to atone for. A part of him wondered why she, if she knew about all this, did she wait that time to act. It would have spared them all of this trouble, and it would have spared Buffy even more pain.

Unfortunately, Rosalind died carrying most of the secrets with her, leaving more questions on top of the shocking revelations.

Speaking of Buffy, the Slayer had broken down and cried after the whole ordeal was over. It took some time but they managed to calm her down enough for the trip home. She never left the house after that. She just holed herself in, barely speaking to everyone. It worried Xander enough to invade her privacy as he placed a surveillance drone outside her home in case she decided to try something foolish enough for her to warrant a trip to the emergency ward. He didn't risk visiting her for fear of having her react to him like he was a leper. After all, it was his facilities where she saw Angel last and that seeing him might prolong the wounds that needed healing.

He shook his head as he tore his gaze from the window to look at the pile of dossiers on his desk. One pile had all the info on the Kalderash clan present during the other night's so-called "festivities" while two dossiers stood apart from the rest. One belonged to the late Rosalind Magdalena Kalderash and the other belonged to a potential employee named Anna Katrina Kalderash also known as Anna Katrina Calendar. While Anna's file in regards to both of her identities were well documented, leaving out any supernatural stuff. The file regarding the late former Elder was hopelessly inadequate. Since no one really started keeping digital documents back in the day, any pertinent data he would need would probably be sitting inside an old census building in Romania gathering dust in an old filing cabinet. While Jarvis was certainly powerful enough to break through any classified electronic files he sure as hell didn't have that much power to break into a filing cabinet that may or may not still exist in some remote part of the world, hence his current dilemma. After thinking about it, he vetoed his own impulse to take the Mark 1 and fly there to look for it.

Durable as his armor was against physical attacks, especially since he re-modified the Mark 1 to fit his "Silver Paladin" persona better, he really did not want to risk the ire of an entire clan of Romany casters with short tempers and a constant yen for vengeance. He did not, at the very least, want to spend the rest of his life as an eunuch if such a spell hit him.

A knock from the door brought him back from having a conversation with some of the Starks inside his head as he checked who the visitor was. He breathed a small sigh as he activated the door lock to open up for Anna. He wasn't expecting her for another four hours, so it must be important.

She took one look at the files on his desk and smirked. "A little light reading?"

"I'm the kind of person that always wants to know what and who I am dealing with." He said. "And information, no matter how meager, is still information."

"Paranoid much?" She asked as she walked around the large vanity desk and sat on top of it right beside Xander.

"It's not paranoia if they're really out to get you." He quoted in reply. "A part of this mess still doesn't make sense to me. I mean, how in the hell didn't you people know that she was that old?"

She shrugged, still thinking about that herself. "I didn't know about that little secret either and she introduced herself to me that time as my Aunt Rosa – not as my great, great grandmother Rosalind."

Xander was about to speak, but Anna cut him off. "I spoke to Enyos and we called the inner council to announce my succeeding Elder Rosa, once they confirmed that I am indeed the new 'Elder', they proceeded to disclose that piece of information to me. In light of your involvement, I, as the new Elder, have chosen to disclose it to you as well before the entire Clan got wind of it since there hadn't been any new Elders once Aunt Rosa took charge of it."

Xander shook his head. "What will you do now?"

"Enyos and some of the others wish to return home." She said. "But the younger ones like Victoria are reluctant, never having been outside the country and still savoring the wonders around her. I don't blame her, really. There are many things to learn here, away from tradition."

"You talked about the others." He asked as he looked into her eyes. "What about you?"

"Before all this? I would have asked for your permission to stay and help Janna." She said. "The doctor in me is curious about all the medical advancements you are making. She wants to see how far you can go in trying to help this world become a better place."

"Good." He said as he tossed her a manila folder. "Because as corny as it may sound; I want you to be here as well. It would help in legitimizing more than half the stuff I want to release that doesn't have a remote chance of being used as weapons of mass destruction."

She picked up the folder and leafed through the papers within, and the more she read, the more the blood drained from her face. She looked at the teenaged genius in front of her and back to the papers she held in her trembling fingers in disbelief.

"You can't be serious!" She exclaimed once she found her voice. "I can't be the head of Medical R&D! And the salary alone could actually feed a small third world country!"

"Really?" Xander said as he pointed to a thick folder with her name stenciled on top of the cover. "Your dossier said otherwise. For a woman with a lot of time on her hands, you spent them well. While it is true you may not have majored in almost all of the fields required, you sure as hell minored on all of them. The fact that one of your professors had a disturbingly high security clearance from a splinter group in the CIA that's not supposed to exist cinched the deal."

"Who?" She asked, racking her brain as she tried to remember half of the teachers she studied under that had a security clearance but came up blank.

"Professor Rudy Wells." He answered.

"But that's all theory!" She said as she remembered the aged professor that had a soft spot for her for being the only one to get exactly what he had been teaching for two semesters. "Bio-mechanical artificial limb restoration is still years behind practical application. The earliest prototypes are crude by comparison to what you're doing with your armor and your nanites."

Xander had to suppress the urge to snort loudly. If only she knew, he thought. She was right on that, however, even with the current advancements in "Bionics", whatever the good doctor and his team developed would still be leagues behind anything he had inside his collective intelligence. It annoyed him, however, to find that the bean counters in Washington, when they discovered the program, turned the damn thing into a military held asset instead of releasing it for the countless paraplegics that actually needed it to lead a semi-normal life. Not that he had anything against Col. Steve Austin and Jamie Sommers as they wouldn't be alive today if it wasn't for Wells and his team, but the selfish military application of what would have been a premier medical breakthrough just galled him to no end.

Who was he to talk about selfish applications of technology, though? Some of the stuff crawling around inside his skull had the capacity, if turned towards a military eye, to turn out a million times worse than an atom bomb. His conscience won't allow it, so no way in hell was he going release everything that he knew unless he found a way to make it as safe as possible for everyone to use and or apply with the least amount of military possibilities.

"I understand." He said to Anna. "But do you still accept? Your cousin vouched for you and she said you were trustworthy. That's who I need in that position, plus, you're already cleared to a point since you already saw me in the armor and some of the stuff the rest of the staff will NEVER be cleared for."

Anna looked at the folder in her hands, and re-read the contract and the ultra-tight non-disclosure agreement within. It was tempting, oh so very tempting, an opportunity like this was akin to a dream job come true; to stay on and actually do something to help the human condition move on to a bright future. She read them again one more time before closing the folder and laying it back down on the customized desk.

Xander frowned as he watched her take a deep breath. She closed her eyes, then exhaled. When she opened them again, she spoke, as if unsure of herself.

"I'll take it." She said. "Under one condition, of course."

"Name it." Xander asked as the Starks inside his mind prepared for a haggling session.

"Use the first few months of my salary to help me bring what is left of the Kalderash Tribe here to the United States." She said, her eyes flashed along with the steel in her voice.

Xander blinked. He mulled it over for a few seconds. This was going to take some time and planning. "Jarvis." He called out to his patiently waiting AI. "Give me feasibility options."

"Sir." The AI replied after running several scenarios and presented his case. "It is doable, but it will take time. Lots of time, I'm afraid. It would raise too many questions with the Immigrations Services if we tried to bring them all at once. "

Xander thought on it for a few more seconds then nodded and faced Anna.

"Deal." He said. "But I will not force people who don't want to, understand? If they want to move here, it must be of their on free will, though why they'll want to move to the Hellmouth, I have no idea. But with that in mind, I may as well expand my company especially in Los Angeles and see if they may want to work there as well. The new head headquarters and offices are already under construction and the main building should be done within a year."

Anna stared, thankful and at the same time flabbergasted. "I'll be going home with them, to present my offer to the inner council. To be honest, I didn't think you would accept knowing that that's going to be a lot of work for any lawyer or lawyers you have on retainer."

Xander shrugged as he rose from his place on the desk to make his way towards her. "As long as you're on board, I believe it's worth it. I want to make this work, and I want make this company strong enough to stand on its own two feet. Hopefully, with the advances we'll be putting out into the field in the next few years, it will be enough for Pal-Core to go global earlier than the ten year estimate I was thinking of if I went at it alone without those in the know."

Xander held out his hand towards Anna, smiling. "Welcome aboard the Pal-Core family, Director Anna Calendar. It will be an honor working with you."

At that, the beautiful raven-haired Clan Head of the Kalderash Tribe blushed as she shook the young man's hand in response. "Thank you." She said. "I'd better start packing for the trip back home, but I promise to be back here after a couple of weeks."

Xander nodded and reached into his coat pocket to pull out a small container roughly the size of a medium jewelry box. Anna watched with a raised eyebrow, wondering what he had in there. When he opened it, she saw what lay within.

It was small, approximately the size of a large Hershey bar (but thinner), had a flat reflective surface with barely any indentations or protrusions on it. Beside the mysterious looking device was an item that gave her an idea as to what it was because said item was a battery charger, however, there was also a smaller rectangular object that she had trouble in discerning as to its use.

"Use this when you need to get in touch with me." He said and he activated the state-of-the-art Pal-Core designed Mobile Phone. "Unlike the clunky models out right now, this works on the same principals as the glass-like board you saw me use when we checked up on Kendra. The holographic touch screen interface is configurable to your specifications should you have trouble with the standard settings."

"Amazing." She said, and looked the phone over once Xander handed it to her. "I recognized the battery charger, but what's this thing next to it?"

"It's something I developed in concert with legally borrowed technology from a bunch of companies calling their collective selves 'Bluetooth Special Interest Group', and I made sure its completely connected exclusively to your phone, so signal loss won't be noticeable for up to 150 meters from it." Xander said, taking the small, slightly rectangular device from the case and touched the button on its surface, activating it. A small blue light began blinking at steady intervals. "This goes in either ear, the gel pad beneath it will make sure it won't fall off once in place a fourth of the way inside your ear canal. The microphone within can pick up even your whisper inside a noisy room with it's auto voice sensor once you program it by entering your voice sample so it can distinguish your voice from everything else even if muffled. The micro-speakers are nothing to laugh at either as sounds coming from it will never be garbled or distorted. The phone itself can be voice activated with the preset commands loaded into it. Anything else I forgot to mention can be found in the manual at the bottom of the case."

"Oh, by the way…" He added. "No long distance charges on that thing since Jarvis handles the signals relay via satellite echoes to interface with communications globally."

She gaped at him. "How the hell did you manage to get a satellite up there without anyone else knowing?"

"Trade secret." He smirked. "Long story short, Jarvis used the excess carrier waves from the other satellites to piggy-back our signals to appear as nothing more than the white noise they usually have and ignore. But later on, I'll get one of our own officially up there, so don't worry about being detected."

Anna shook her head; it seemed that there was no end to the young man's inventiveness.

"You and your toys." She said. "Do you have any time to sleep at all while you keep bringing out all these little wonders into the world?"

The young man shrugged. "I had to keep myself busy, and stuff like that was worth it. Besides, I made a prototype version that's every bit as clunky as the current phones and had it patented with our R&D department for mass production. The advanced stuff I withheld a bit so as not to get anyone too suspicious. What you hold there is one of five Pal-Core models that will not be in the market for another few years until everyone is slightly able to catch up."

Anna shook her head again in amazement, turned and started for the door, then stopped to look back at Xander. "Not just an inventor, but you're also a sporting businessman, amazing. Any way, I have to go pay a visit to Kendra and my cousin, then start packing for the trip back. Thank you again for everything."

Xander acknowledged her farewell with a wave and a smile, but frowned once the door closed. "Jarvis, what's the update on Kendra's status?"

The AI's voice echoed within the huge office. "She is responding well to the reduced medical treatment. However, I did detect a certain amount of restlessness at being confined for the last few days judging from her most recent stress analysis. Since I have no frame of reference for her type of physiology because she is, so far, the first patient we have that is a mystically empowered Slayer. I would have to go as it with calculated guesswork and periodic observations from the medical nanites still in her system."

"Yeah, well…" Xander thought aloud. "Try no to treat her too much like a guinea pig, ok? Another thing, how are the changes in regards to 'Project Rebirth"?"

"The project is eighty nine percent complete, sir." The AI replied. "Almost all electronically stored data under her real name: Kendra Young, are being purged and rewritten as we speak."

"Wait." Xander said, sliding back into the chair and activating the keyboard to bring up a holographic monitor to review the data Jarvis had collected. "Kendra Young? She does have a last name?"

"Indeed, sir. A match to the search parameters that you ordered for an identity trace was found amongst the early electronic files uploaded to the central files in the Missouri FBI database in regards to a missing children's report compilation."

"She was kidnapped?" The young man started steaming.

"No sir." The AI replied. "The birth parents were not the ones to report her missing, insisting that they sent her to live with an unnamed Aunt in living in Tucson, Arizona. According to the records, the report was filed by their neighbor that often babysat for them. Her case was dismissed due to lack of enough evidence since the birth parents were sterling members of their Church community. I dug further and my investigation revealed that the parents received a monthly stipend for a total of four years after they moved from Missouri to New Mexico. The last sum deposited in their account was in excess of five hundred thousand dollars, a little exorbitant by today's standards, but when combined to the total they had been receiving for the four year period would raise the mark to two point five million and it would raise more than a few questions."

It didn't take long for Jarvis to notice that his creator's hands were already clenched as he finished the more detailed report he saved within his mainframe. In an attempt to calm the young genius down, he pulled another file and put it on the forefront of the data Xander was looking at. Sure enough, Xander stared at the new data in shock.

"They died a year ago in an auto accident?" Xander exclaimed in disbelief. "What the fuck?"

Then he read the date when they died and his anger resumed, but in a different direction. If the date was accurate, then that meant that they died a few days after Kendra was "Called" when Buffy drowned inside the Master's lair. Having left no will, their assets were "donated" by their lawyer to an agency that, ironically, served as front for the Watcher's Council when they took life out insurance for them and their missing daughter.

"Damn, Jarvis." Xander said appreciating his AI's handiwork and himself for creating him. "You ARE thorough. Print me a hard copy, and save all that under a Stark level ten encryption."

"Sir." The AI thought to ask. "I assume that hard copy is for Ms Young, but are you sure it is wise to let Kendra know all of this?"

"Not now." He answered. "I don't want to risk the chance of her retreating into a shell we can't get her out of. For her, the council drilled everything they could in molding her, including loyalty to them and their cause. She needs to be told, sure, but not until she is ready."

"Understood, sir." Jarvis acknowledged, and then asked one more question. "And have you picked out a name for her to finalize Project Rebirth, sir?"

"I've got the perfect one." He replied. "It's fitting that she should have it, since she's going to be wearing a variation of Jim's suit. Once the data wipe finishes, insert the name Kassandra Rhodes in all the databases applicable and as far back as possible."

"Affirmative." Jarvis said and prepared the virtual cluster bomb virus to implement the changes specified by Project Rebirth. "Will that be all, sir?"

"Yep." Xander said. "I'm headed for Main Engineering, time to see if my other projects need any more tinkering. I have a feeling I'm may have need of them soon."

Suddenly, the holographic monitor popped up on his desk as an alarm rang through his office. It was a tight-beam military SOS signal common to fighter pilots, which would not have warranted his attention except for one strange thing, the point of origin was NOT inside earth's atmosphere. Puzzled, Xander walked back to his desk and activated a program that automatically hacked into a spy satellite near the signal. The display showed a lone ship with downplayed US Air Force markings listing in the upper atmosphere. Zooming in for a closer inspection, he saw that the pilot and co-pilot were wearing Air Force G suits. They were obviously not in control of the situation and even barely managed to get their craft stabilized when a hyperspace window opened in front of them and they shot through it.

"Jarvis." He asked in a tight voice. "Please tell me we can track that thing."

"I have insufficient data to form an answer to your query." The AI intoned.

"Okay." He said. "Please tell me you've managed to reverse-engineer and finish the redesigned Shi'ar FOLD Armor Sled from one of my DBD servers?"

"I am afraid to report that I did almost finish it a few days ago, however the FOLD system is down barred by interface complications. Shi'ar tech is difficult to reverse-engineer and rebuild at this time. " Jarvis replied, the AI sounded a tad nervous at what his creator was even thinking and its logic circuits was dismayed that the young genius started for the hidden access tube that would jet him straight into Main Engineering. "Sir, I would advise against this rash course of action! Using an Earth manufactured armored pack with Shi'arian reverse-engineered technology without further testing is tantamount to suicide. It was a minor miracle the PULSE booster worked at all; an untested larger FOLD version weapons platform can go either way, especially with a full sized zero-point arc power module replacing Shi'ar standard engines."

"Why are you being such a mother hen?" Xander asked, sliding into the tube and rocketed towards his armory.

"Because you programmed me to be this way." The AI's voice echoed inside the tube he rode on.

"Good point." Xander conceded.

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Minutes later, two forms shot out of the hidden access tunnel that led to the desert. One of them was Xander in the refitted Mark One repainted silver and light gray, to match his new Moniker as the Silver Paladin. The other was a large blue, short-winged, automated craft driven by a Jarvis AI clone that easily kept even pace with the new Paladin armor's Pulse booster-augmented speed.

Xander lined up with the redesigned flying tactical Shi'ari-based FOLD platform renamed "Halcyon" and edged his way on to its top. Once close enough, he reached out and clamped onto the handlebars that emerged on the upper fuselage while he cut power to the booster on his back as they escaped Earth's atmosphere.

"Sir." The on-board AI clone reported. "Incoming data packet from Jarvis Prime."

Xander read the data packet and whistled. According to Jarvis, the pilots in the out of control ship managed to drop out of hyperspace and re-appeared near Pluto. Xander frowned, the last data burst suggested that instead of accelerating, the ship was moving in a straight-line ballistic trajectory to its unknown target.

"What the hell happened?" Xander asked aloud. "Did they run out of fuel?"

"From what Jarvis Prime was able to glean from hijacking the communications signals from the SGC, it appears they were heading to an alien named Apophis and his home world for supposed insubordination." The Halcyon said in reply.

"I really got to read up on their mission files." Xander griped. "How long will it take to get there with the FOLD system offline?"

"A few hours at best under passive combat configuration, sir." Halcyon said.

"Let's speed this up." Xander said and detached from the flying platform as he kept pace with his reactivated PULSE booster. "Activate alpha combat configuration."

The Halcyon responded to his command as the forward fuselage broke apart from the main body and swiveled up and towards the rear section to latch itself between the large twin zero-drive propulsion exhaust ports. The lower part of the main body opened up and split apart to look like an X from the front view, two parts went upwards to reveal the main repulsor canons it hid, while the other two went down and formed a "Z" shape from the side view. The stubby wings on each side of the platform swept upwards and inwards to lock on to the separating side-panels that housed the secondary repulsor canons and mechanical WALDO arms. The newly reconfigured Halcyon slowed down a bit for its creator to move in front of it. Xander shut down his booster and let the Halcyon move in. The PULSE booster connected into place in between the main canons that now peeked above each armored shoulder while the Halcyon's computer connected with the armor. Xander's armored feet clamped down onto each of the lower Z section, then was held tight with specially designed force-field links that joined the armor and the platform as one unit as the armor's main body literally connected with the larger machine. Armrests with mini-computers extended towards Xander's arms, to his right went the flight and weapons control, and to the left went tactical and systems ops.

Once the configuration was complete and Xander secured, the Halcyon accelerated to full sublight speeds before engaging cloak as it flew after the wayward ship carrying Col. Jack O'Neill and a former first prime named Teal'c.

Jarvis sent one more data burst from the last intercepted transmission, they were already starting to run out of air.

Xander urged the Halcyon to put out its best top speed and wished he had more time to fool around with the reverse-engineered FOLD system.

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To Be Continued...

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"Glimpses"

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Elsewhere…

The pale-skinned man watched, hidden in darkness, as he saw another one go into the facility where they kept human slaves. It had been months since he had first arrived here, and most of that time he used to get acquainted with his new condition while trying to survive the harshness of this dimension. From time to time, he gave mercy to those humans left to die outside by draining them quickly rather than let them suffer.

Sometimes, when blood wasn't enough to sustain him, he went and stole food to keep himself alive. The first few times he ate made him sick for days as his body was still undergoing transformation and was rejecting almost everything he ate, but once it was over, he started feeling things again. Things a vampire never should. Things he could not explain.

So here he was, back to skulking in the shadows as he watched the slave facility with unwavering patience. He asked himself why he was here when there was more fresh meat to hunt away from this particular place. A part of him felt like he wanted to help save these people, while the other part didn't give a damn what happened to them as long as he can nab a few and stay well fed. A third part of him was disgusted at getting something akin to hand-me-downs from those too weak to stay alive in there. These new thoughts confused him. Aside from the constant nightmares that went with his condition during his adjustment period, he knew without a doubt that this was what Dru must have felt like when he drove her crazy.

Yet through all this, he stayed sane, wishing he had already lost his sanity ever since the soul fusion.

They should have dusted him the first time he drained Rosalind's sister all those years ago, he thought bitterly. Death would be easier than living like this.

"Where would the fun be in all that, Liam?" A voice from behind him broke into his inner ramblings. "Besides the time has long since passed that the word 'easy' should no longer hold sway in your vocabulary."

The man once known as Angel, Angelus, the Scourge of Europe, turned around to face the speaker.

"Fuck." He said as he took in the appearance of the being in front of him.

"Nope." The being said, smirking at his reaction. "Sorry, but that's not my name. I used to be a kid who had the unfortunate luck of choosing to wear the wrong costume that killed me last Halloween. But you can thank our Boss upstairs for helping me with the 'dead' part."

"What the fuck are you?" Liam asked as he tried to wrap his head around that one. The face of the being in front of him looked human, a male teenager by modern twentieth century standards. It was the rest of him from the neck-down was what made the not-quite vampire wonder if he was seeing things.

From the neck-down, Liam could see stars, galaxies, planets, practically just about everything one would expect in deep space twisted into the shape of a human body clad in non-reflective black. Hesitantly, Liam reached out to poke the thing's chest, only to have his entire hand go through and the feeling of cold vacuum was apparent on the other side.

He jerked his hand back to find it almost froze solid, his fear-filled eyes searched the strange being's own.

"I used go by my human name, Richard Todd. But now, I am known by many names; one of them being 'FOREVERNESS' or 'THAT WHICH HAS YET NO END'." The being said a trace of amusement evident on his face. "But I prefer what the Creator named me: ETERNITY."

"And as part of my on the job training as the universe's personified construct, I'm going to be your Jiminy Cricket for the duration of your stay here." ETERNITY said as he leaned in close to Liam's face. "In other words, I'm your new boss."

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A/N: whew that was a LONG update... I hope you liked this chapter. I tried to answer some of the questions and brought new ones up while at it to hopefully keep you all still interested. I've decided to bring Xander a out into space as a big start to his summer adventures and hopefully to integrate him finally into the SG-verse with this. I tried, really to make it an alien invasion thing but I already read how the Journeyverse did and it was better than what I can come up with... soooo I decided to do it this way and change how the episode "Tangent" went about and gave the X-301 a bit more "Oomph" by way of a malfunctioning hyperspace engine that was triggered by the trap the snake installed in all of his stuff... but you will see a bit more action too since not everything goes according to planed... even for Xander and the Tok'ra.

"Glimpses" is one short chapter that I had in mind to give a preview of where and how Angel is being managed outside of PTB influence and under a new "manager" so to speak. That short chapter is also the last time we'll see of Angel for a long while. I am thinking of a plan on how the rest of the Scoobies will finally learn the real truth later on, but for now, Xander will still have to keep digging a hole for himself in that area...

I might be gone for a couple of weeks to do some RL stuff that really needed handling but I will pop in from time to time to make corrections again to this fic (as always in FF dot net and TTH dot com) while working on the next chapter. (thanks to Ponder for some help with his posted review)

Until then, Ja ne!

PS...

DBD - Direct Brain Download

Regular marvel universe had their technology already capable to mesh with Shi'ar tech (sometimes with less than desired results -- only a few were able to actually do it, Reed, Hank McCoy, and Stark being among those lucky few)

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	14. Chapter 14

XANDER HARRIS: THE IRON TAU'RI

By:"Gunsmith3000"

Started 5-19-08

Completed: ??

Disclaimers: Nothing belongs to me other than this insane idea I have that just won't let go. Iron Man belongs to Marvel, Stargate SG1 belongs to Paramount. Buffy belongs to Joss Whedon.

Summary: Xander goes as one of his favorite marvel comic characters, but gets more than he's bargained for.

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"Eye of the Storm"

(Part 1)

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Major Samantha Carter watched her father as he frowned when he glanced at the controls of the Tok'Ra scout ship.

"What's wrong?" She asked, not at all liking the way her father's forehead crease with worry. It usually meant that he was trying very hard not to mutter an oath in polite company. It had only been less than an hour since Jacob had to scrub his mission because he spotted them coming out of the stargate.

"Nothing's wrong." Jacob said, fighting off the urge to curse as well as a little annoyed at how Selmac seemed to chuckle when she knew what he was thinking. "At least not yet."

"But…" Daniel Jackson asked. "There will be something wrong?"

"Well, let's just say I'd like to stop for a second and make some repairs." Jacob replied, irritation slightly coloring his tones as he glanced one more time at one particular reading. "But this is not a particularly safe part of town to pull over."

"Oh." Daniel said sheepishly.

Having held it in for so long, Jacob sighed and began to rant. "And, what were you thinking, anyway? Retrofitting a death glider? You should have known better. The technology you're screwing around with is way over your head!

Sam stared at her father in outright disbelief. Did he just say what she heard him say?

"That is the most arrogant …" She sputtered, incensed at the way her father spoke down to them as a whole. "I can't believe that… that just came out of your mouth!"

 Jacob was nonplussed. "Well, it's the truth." He said, as if trying to explain it to a small child.

"You of all people should know…." Sam between clenched teeth but was cut off by her Jacob.

"I am uniquely qualified to know just how technologically infantile the human race is." He said.

"INFINTILE!" Sam screeched.

Daniel winced at the amount of volume Sam had used when she said that.  He looked around the cockpit for a place to hide, wanting to be anywhere but within range of ground zero.

"Yes." He replied in tones that still sounded like a parent telling off an impatient child. "In comparison with the Goa'uld and Tok'Ra, you're very young."

"You… You are such…" Sam started.

Daniel could tell Sam wanted to swear right then and there, would have too if he wasn't around. The more he listened to father and daughter bicker; he was swaying more towards Sam's reasoning as he was technically part of the discussion by the simple fact of also being born on Earth.

"There's nothing wrong with being young." Jacob said. "But you've gotta learn to take small steps. You can't just slap a US Air Force sticker on the side of a retrofitted DEATH GLIDER, muscle in a barely compatible hyperdrive, and call it yours. Advancement like that has to be earned."

"Um, aren't the Goa'uld, and the Tok'Ra, for that matter…" Daniel began, and almost stopped when father and daughter turned to glare at him. "Uh… where they are by stealing the technology from other races?"

"YES!" Sam exclaimed, glad that Daniel pointed that out.

"Yes, that may be so." The bonded human said as he tried to defend his statement. "But the Tok'Ra already flew around in ships like these when most of the people on earth thought it was flat."

Their argument might have gone on further when a muffled explosion was heard coming from aft.

"What's that?" Sam asked as she studied the shuttle's layout on one of the monitors.

The "debate" forgotten, Jacob frantically shut down some non-essential systems while calling up the ship's status reports. "What I was afraid of. We over-taxed the drives. We're dropping out of hyperspace."

"Are we still in a bad part of town?"  Daniel asked while he peered out of the windows.

"The worst." Jacob replied as he set about rerouting certain systems and activated some of the still functioning auto-repairs to speed up the process while Sam helped with the manual labor. "We can probably get the drives back online, but it's gonna take a few minutes. Out of curiosity, why did you ask?"

"Oh, nothing." Daniel said with a strange lilt to his voice as he stared out ahead of the ship. "I just wanted to be sure they are what I think they are in relation to where we are."

The other two onboard paused to look at him, and then they looked out of the window to see whatever he caught his attention.  Much to their surprise, they saw two Goa'uld motherships flanking them.

"Can we cloak the ship?" She asked her father.

"Nah. All main power systems are off line." He replied, then looked at Daniel ""Can you speak with them in the Goa'uld dialect?

"The dialect? Yes." The archeologist answered and wondered what Jacob was up to.

"Then that's all you need." He said as he ushered the man closer and pointed him to a control panel. "When they try to make contact with you, place your hand here, and use your imagination. Take your hand away, and it'll broadcast."

Jacob left Daniel with his mouth opened and closed like a fish while he turned to his daughter. "Sam, can you give me a hand in the back?"

With a nod, she followed him to where the engines' main console was located in the inner part of the ship as she also left Daniel without a word. Briefly, the young archeologist entertained the notion of justifiable homicide towards the two for leaving him to face the Goa'uld alone.

"They aren't paying me enough for this." He thought as his mind raced on what he could say to give them enough time to fix the ship. Surprisingly, his mind came up with one answer. "When in doubt, do a Jack O'Neill."

He reached out for the communications console and took a deep breath. Someone up there must be laughing at him right now.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Jacob came back to the control room a few minutes later much to Daniel's relief.

"Alright, we're almost finished." Jacob told Daniel as he settled back into the pilot's chair, checking the systems on the fly.

"That's good, because I don't think they bought my act." Daniel said with a blush.

"Why?" Jacob looked at him and wished he didn't. The young man looked like he'd been caught with his hand inside the cookie jar, and that worried both Jacob and Selmac. "Who'd you say you were?"

"The great and powerful... OZ!" Daniel replied sheepishly, the blush on his face deepened.

Both human and bonded symbiote gaped as Jacob's eyes widened while he supplied the reference to the querying Selmac. I can't believe he said that, we are so dead, Jacob thought.

Urgently, he called out to his daughter. "SAM!"

"Almost there!" She replied from the aft compartment.

Jacob almost had a heart attack when he saw numerous death gliders leave both ships and head straight for them. We are SO very dead, he thought. Resisting the urge to panic through his military calm, he called out louder to his daughter.

"WE GOTTA GO!"

"Punch it!" She yelled back. A minute later the Tok'Ra scout ship jumped into hyperspace right before the death gliders could reach them.  Unbeknownst to them, however, the lead glider launched a tracking beacon after the shuttle before its hyperspace window collapsed.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Xander tried not to fall asleep as he settled into a relaxed stance while ensconced in the FOLD weapons platform hurtling across the void of space towards the wayward X-301.  As the time towards the destination shrank, a part of him was having doubts as to what he should do when he got there.  To pass the time, he studied the last batch of data burst uploaded into the Halcyon that Jarvis Prime sent when he hacked into Area 51 in regards to the X-301.

The young genius couldn't help believe the half-assed job they did in retrofitting the alien Death Gliders that they took apart for study and then reassembled it with patchwork Air Force ingenuity.  They tried making a multi-purpose craft, one that could face any number of supposed combat conditions both short and long range. The long-range goal was evident when they attached a clunky hyperdrive engine that was barely compatible with the entire setup.  It worked to a degree, but there were a lot of things that were so wrong with it from his standpoint.  They tried to piece together a jigsaw puzzle without really understanding all the pieces.  He gave them points for the effort, but they rushed it towards the end in a desperate attempt to get a fully functional space fighter up in record time.  They should have run more equipment SIMS and testing before actually putting it up for an actual flight test.

An alert signal notified him that he was already passing the orbital path of Neptune, closing down the data file; he fired off another automated probe towards the direction of the planet.  Like the rest of the probes he had launched for the others, they would help him conduct an in-depth study of the each targeted planet in the hopes that he may get more data than what NASA had gotten with the voyager probes that did flybys with each planet on their way out of Earth's solar system.

After making sure that the current probe he released headed into the right direction, he urged the Halcyon to go faster towards his own target.

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The Tok'Ra Tel'tak emerged from hyperspace in the general vicinity where the retrofitted death glider was thought to cross. It took a while of frantic searching, but they were able to get a lock on the faint power emissions coming from the damaged craft that set it apart from the background "sensor" noise that was deep space and started tracking it.

"This is Digger 2." Sam spoke using the communications console to contact Earth. "We are in the solar system, and are preparing for retrieval. We estimate our time to station keep with Digger 1 is 4 minutes. Stand by.

Back at Stargate Command, Davis and General Hammond exchanged looks before Davis grabbed the mic and spoke into it. "We're trying to make contact with Digger 1, but without success."

"There they are." Daniel said as he saw a small shape listing in the distance. Jacob acknowledged by veering into that direction.  Sam busied herself by inputting the com channel frequency that the Glider used.

"Digger 1, this is Carter. Do you read?" She said, but got only static as a reply. Sam turned to her father. "Dad, let's get closer."

"Acknowledged." He said, coming abreast the damaged craft in seconds after additional thrust. He peered into the darkened cockpit and at the slumped forms.

"Are we too late?" He asked aloud, afraid to find out.

"I think they're unconscious." She said, seeing a puff of condensed air that was barely visible escape from the Colonel's half-open mouth.

"Well, we have to wake them up somehow." Danny said from beside her.

"Damn it, Colonel!" Sam shouted into the channel, frustrated that she couldn't raise them via the communications line. "We haven't come all this way to take you home in a box, now WAKE UP!"

"Let me give them a nudge." Jacob said as he noticed how hard his daughter was fighting off tears. He maneuvered the Tel'tak on thruster power alone and glided it towards the X-301 while ignoring the proximity alarm as he intentionally collided with the damaged craft, giving it a "light" tap.

-0-0-0-0-0-

"Eighty-seven bottles of beer on the wall, eighty-seven bottles of beer…." Jack sang until a loud clang reverberated into his dreamscape.  He turned towards the crazy looking kid with a starfield for eyes that kept him company inside his boat situated in the middle of his lake.

"What was that?" He asked his unknown fishing buddy of the moment. "Did you hear that?"

"Yep." The strange teen replied as the entire dreamscape was suddenly replaced by the same starfield that was in his eyes. They floated in space for a few seconds, Jack watched in surprise as the young man's body turned into a translucent silhouette that almost matched the space around them.

Before the young man faded from view, he smiled towards the brave human. "It was nice meeting you for a little bit, Jack, but its time for you to wake up."

"Wait!" Jack called out to him. "I don't even know who you are!"

"It won't matter even if you did, Jonathan O'Neill." The young man replied as Jack's vision dimmed as well. "You won't remember any of this. Take care of yourself, Jack!"

-0-0-0-0-0-

Jack woke up, disoriented. He struggled to look around, wondering what hit them. It took a second but his gaze swiveled towards the starboard side of his craft to find his 2IC staring at him worriedly from inside a funky looking space ship.  He wondered if they caught any fish.

Sam didn't like the way Jack's eyes kept trying to maintain focus. "Colonel O'Neill?" She called out to him with concern as his gaze wavered before it finally focused on her long enough to acknowledge her.

"Carter?" He said, sluggishly trying to maintain a firm grasp on lucidity. "Carter!"

"Yes, Sir!" She was elated that he recognized her, but her grin slid off the moment his eyes lost focus.

Jack was completely out of it as he managed a drunken sounding "HI!" in greeting.

"Hi, sir." She frowned. "We're gonna find a way to get you back home safe and warm. What's your reserve Oxygen status?"

"Uh -- I don't -- WHAT?" The Colonel managed to mumble.

"What's your reserve Oxygen status?" She repeated, slowly.

"Carter, is that you?" He asked, turning the wrong way in an attempt to find where the voice was coming from.

"Sir, we're over here ready to bring you home. You're gonna have to trust me." She said as their mounting worry grew when they saw how he kept looking around, confused. "He's suffering from anoxia, oxygen deprivation."

"Do you trust me, Sir?" She said with greater urgency.

In a moment of momentary lucidity, he snapped his head to look at her. "Sure!" he replied.

"Good! Is Teal'C conscious?" She asked.

"Teal'c?" Jack called out to his co-pilot.  When receiving no response, he looked around his area, then reached for the pen on one of his side pockets and lobbed it towards the man's helmet. "Teal'c!"

The former first prime of Apophis awoke from his meditation the moment the heavy pen clunked on top of his helmet. Resisting the urge to sound annoyed, he tilted his head in response to his comrade and asked. "O'Neill?"

"Look, its Carter!" Jack said. "She wants to talk to you!"

"Major Carter!" The Jaffa acknowledged in greeting and opened his own com channel as he read off of the gauge on his screen. "Little Oxygen remains."

"Cabin pressure?" She asked.

"Also very low." He confirmed.

"We copy that. So we want you do exactly as we say." She said, licking her lips for what she was about to propose. "First, remove your restraints. Then on my mark, blow the canopy of the glider, then push off."

"We will die!" Teal'c said as he spoke the obvious.

"Negative!" Sam called back, trying to put their fears at ease. "It'll be alright if it's only for a few seconds."

Jacob tried to explain better. "Teal'c, the only way we can bring you aboard is with the ring transporter. That means you have to be clear of the glider. Got it?"

"I understand." Teal'c got it.

"Good." Jacob said as he continued with his explanation. "I need you at least 5 meters from the scout ship, close together. Stand by until I get into position."

Jack started at the new voice as he tracked the source coming from Sam's side. "Jacob, is that you?"

"Yes, it is, Jack." The bonded human replied with a smile. "Now do what we tell you."

"Did you know your ship's bigger than ours?" The dazed Colonel said with a frown.

"Colonel, we need you to concentrate." Sam broke in.

Showing a renewed focus, he snapped to Teal'c in a clear voice. "Blow the canopy."

"On my mark." She said "Not before."

Jack turned back to her. "Right!"

"Make sure your helmets are secure, and set your oxygen at 100." She directed as Jacob moved the larger craft into position slightly above the listing Glider. "You'll need to pre-breathe the last breaths in deep breaths holding each one in. You'll need to power the system before you blow the canopy. Then disconnect the umbilical, and exhale as much as possible. Stand by!

"We're in position." Sam's father said for her and Jack's benefit. "Stand by in the hold."

"Colonel, Teal'c?" Sam asked one more time as she checked the readings. "Are you ready?"

"Ready!" Jack said, along with Teal'c.

Holding a breath of her own, she started the countdown. "Three -- two -- one --mark!"

The canopy blew and Jack and Teal'C began to float in to space. The ring doors opened underneath the scout ship directly over them and the transporter rings activated. Sam tore her gaze from the console to catch them materializing in the hold where they fainted. Daniel ran to check both of his teammates and smiled.

"They're fine!" He exclaimed in relief. "Sam, they're all right!"

"Flight, this is Digger 2." Carter radioed back to the SGC. "We have Colonel O'Neill and Teal'c aboard! THEY'RE BOTH ALIVE!" She closed the transmission and ran to her friends with  Jacob right behind her.

"Welcome aboard!" She told Jack as Daniel props him up, while Teal'c was already sitting up, having recovered faster than Jack did.

"Jacob." Jack said in a grateful voice as he turned to see Sam's father kneel beside his daughter. "Thanks for stopping by."

"What the hell?" The human Tok'Ra replied with a grin. "I was in the neighborhood! Ya need a lift home?"

"Yes, Sir." Jack said, his grin matched the human Tok'Ra as the older man helped him up and thanked him again. "Thank you."

Their joyous reunion was short-lived the moment they turned to face the windows, their matching grins turned to matching looks of horror as they saw the Goa'uld mothership Daniel pissed off earlier drop out of hyperspace right into their flight path with death gliders pouring out of it en masse.

"Don't mention it, Jack." Jacob spoke in response to Jack's token of thanks, his eyes wide as he stared at the rapidly approaching squad of death gliders. "Ever."

The brief flashes that came from each of the death gliders' wingtips signaled that their weapons were now primed and ready to fire at the slightest provocation.

They opened fire.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Both Carters rushed for their respective consoles as Jacob tried like hell to evade the incoming weapons fire, pulling out maneuvers at a rate the shuttle wasn't designed for, while Sam kept an eye out on the status displays. Everyone else tried to grab on to something to steady themselves from the rocking motions the ship was going through in protest.

"Hyperdrive engines are offline! Cloak offline!" Sam called out from the status display. "We can't take much more of this!"

In the mass panic they were feeling, they didn't realize that they accidentally picked up a com signal that didn't come from the Goa'uld until it roared out of their speakers the exact moment one of the gliders exploded in an impressive shower of pyrotechnic display.

They all watched in mute shock as a small blue ship-like object shimmered into view and ran rings around the entire death glider squadron, causing incredible destruction amongst their ranks.

"Here I am." The broadcasted music thundered forth from the communication lines speakers at full volume as it confounded the Goa'uld and astonished the humans in the Tel'tak. "Rock you like a Hurricane!"

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Jacob turned from staring out of the shuttle to face SG1, an incredulous look on his face.

"Is there something you guys not telling me?" He asked while pointing outside the window.

As one, the members of SG1 raised their hands in clear confusion and truthful denial as they collectively shook their heads.

"... ROCK YOU LIKE A HURRICANE!!"

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-TO BE CONTINUED-

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A/N:  yep, the long awaited meet is in full swing.  As always... rewrites and corrections will be on F F dot Net and on T T H F A N F I C dot COM.

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Additional authors note: I finally found a good picture for what I based the FOLD weapons platform Xander is riding on into battle:

/blog/2008/04/21/gn-001-gundam-exia-gn-arms-type-e-hg/

/photos/busterbeam/2365992804/

gogdv./06hg/15gdoo/oohg13-00n.jpg

I saw that bad boy in the Anime convention during the July 4th weekend in Los Angeles, CA -- I kept staring at it, imagining how Xander's Paladin would be like with one of those augmenting him in space.

Like I said, the pictures are only a basis for what I had in mind as to what the Halcyon Xander is using sort of looks like -- but his machine is more robust and meaner-looking than the ones depicted on the link (Gundam GN Arms and Exia)  -- I just used that model as an inspiration for Xander's platform.

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	15. Chapter 15

XANDER HARRIS: THE IRON TAU'RI  
By:"Gunsmith3000"  
Started 5-19-08  
Completed: ??

Disclaimers: Nothing belongs to me other than this insane idea I have that just won't let go. Iron Man belongs to Marvel, Stargate SG1 belongs to Paramount. Buffy belongs to Joss Whedon.

Summary: Xander goes as one of his favorite marvel comic characters, but gets more than he's bargained for.

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"Eye of the Storm"  
(Part 2)

-0-0-0-0-0-

"Sir, I am detecting a spatial disturbance within the vicinity of the damaged X-301." The Halcyon alerted its creator as it delivered complementary readings to show up on the holographic HUD on the left armrest display.

"Hostile?" Xander asked, charging the repulsor canons and all eight Pulse missiles that were the standard payload within the Halcyon, and hoped it was enough.

"Negative." The Halcyon AI responded. "Intercepted transmission from both ships towards Earth suggests an ally. Comparison trace within my database confirms Tok'Ra contact, more specifically, a Tok'Ra shuttle. They have linked up with the damaged X-301 and are beginning rescue operations."

"What's our ETA?" Xander said as he pulled up the Tok'Ra data he filched from the SGC via Jarvis. Goa'uld/Tok'Ra Tel'tak class shuttle/scout ship; lightly shielded, has a moderate cloaking field, primarily used for cargo and recon missions with defensive capabilities only. From an aerodynamic standpoint, it looked ridiculous. But then again, you really don't need any aerodynamics in space, you could be flying a bathtub and still go fast despite the ugly as sin appearance as long as you have decent navigational deflection shields.

"ETA is T-minus twelve minutes and counting." The AI replied, and almost suffered its version of a digital choke as it registered another spatial disturbance ahead. One that was considerably larger than the Tok'Ra shuttle. After doing a quick database scan to match the new arrival, it was dismayed to find a match rather quickly.

"Warning, another spatial disturbance has occurred up ahead and I am now registering a Goa'uld class mothership." The Halcyon intoned as it attempted a scan.

The scan was almost fruitless due to interference at this distance, but once death gliders started launching, it was able to scan the gliders fairly well. After it scanned the gliders, it reported its findings to Xander.

"I need a threat assessment." Xander inquired while he programmed the targeting system to differentiate between friend and foe alike.

"Data comparison against SGC information suggests that the death gliders have no such shielding beyond navigational deflection." The AI replied. "However the metal comprising the ships have light to moderate level tolerance from earth-based weapons. However it is confirmed that according to the SGC, one such glider was taken out by a high-yield man-portable rocket launcher."

"What about the big ass mothership?" Xander asked, slightly pleased that the smaller ones were manageable.

"The huge pyramid-shaped vessel has extensive armor placement that is beyond moderate level hull plating. They may have some sort of shielding as I am getting interference even from this distance." The AI replied, then added to answer a probable question its creator might ask. "The only noted destruction of a mothership caused by human hands was when they delivered a nuclear explosive at point blank range INSIDE the ship itself."

"Fuck." Xander swore. "Calculate if our payload of pulse missiles is enough to take that sucker down."

"Zero." Was the one word reply from the AI. "Even if you delivered a full payload at one go, it will not be sufficient enough to destroy the ship, though it might damage it severely. However, after studying the data taken from the SGC, I believe I may have a working solution that would help while we think of alternative methods to dispatch the mothership."

"I'm all ears, Hal." Xander replied as he watched the Tok'Ra shuttle start its frantic evasion of enemy fire. They were still a little too far out of the way.

"If the alien software within the former Goa'uld death glider appropriated by the SGC on board the X-301 is similar to the actual gliders, then I believe I may be able to send a virtual bomb within the ship's network to cause enough confusion via a constant stream communiqué."

"Not a bad idea, Hal." Xander thought aloud. "What are the odds for success?"

"I calculate at least forty percent over one hundred." The AI said in a tone that sounded like it wanted to bite on nails. "You would call that as a long shot, sir. There is a very good chance that I could be shut out before I finish invading their system the moment the signal I sent is found."

Xander thought it over a little more as they got closer. "What about a three-pronged Trojan horse-style attack?"

"I beg your pardon, sir?" The AI asked, unsure of what his creator was planning.

"Granted that a single carrier wave from us will be instantly recognized as a direct attack on the ship, but…" Xander hypothesized. "What if we did it by piggy-backing the signal inside another? What if we use one signal to penetrate, one to jam it and keep it open, and the last to actually do the dirty work?"

"Provided we have the means to deliver the virtual bomb, it is doable, sir." The AI calculated the new scenario. "It would raise the probability factor to seventy percent. But what can we use as the delivery method?"

"Music." Xander replied with a feral smile. "One broadcasted on maximum volume and on every frequency you've got at your disposal. You told me you were able to intercept the transmission from the Tok'Ra ship, right? So if they have a copy of Earth's many frequencies, it would stand to reason that the SGC also has theirs, including whatever information their friend Teal'c divulged when he defected."

"They could have easily changed it." The AI put in, searching through the data sent over by Jarvis Prime.

"Hmmm, at the risk of having to re-write all the ship's security logs from top to bottom?" Xander asked. "No, I am betting they only did that for their more sensitive data. Regular stuff like the communications array are probably left alone because if they have to change that setup, they would also have to do it for their gliders as well. Their arrogance can also be equal to their laziness since they think they are absolute power unstoppable."

"Indeed, their psychological profile via observations from the SGC's Daniel Jackson would concur." The AI agreed, and started a new plan and discussed it with his creator.

-0-0-0-0-0-

"All right." Xander said finally as he was near enough to see one of the gliders hit the shuttle hard enough to cause the evading ship to list to a stop. "That's about as good as it gets. Get the playlist ready, I think SG1's almost had it."

"Affirmative." The AI responded, then opened on all frequencies and on every channel available as the first strains of Scorpion's premier anthem entitled "Rock You Like a Hurricane" started to play.

Xander lowered the volume in his own helmet back down to a tolerable level as he started to attack, scoring his first hit as he de-cloaked. The signaled; disguised as a non-stop stream of communications chatter was received and bounced around the Tok'Ra transport, then rebounded to the nearest death glider, which in turn, bounced to the next and so forth until it reached the mothership.

"Let's get this party started!" He screamed as he ripped into the death gliders with his repulsor canons. He could just imagine the look on the faces of SG1 when rock music started pouring out of their speakers in full glory as he blew apart the glider closest to them that was preparing to fire.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Inside the mothership, the Jaffa minding the main console that directed communications with its pilots stared at the data coming in from the gliders, confused. In trying to clear up whatever was interfering communications with its squadrons, he broadened the range of frequencies to try to strengthen contact between gliders. It was also his undoing, because once he eased up on the tight-beam bandwidth, it allowed an easy opening for the signal the AI was transmitting to come through unimpeded.

"What are you doing?" His god shouted from his throne behind him as a shipwide broadcast of the alien music invaded their system, growing louder and louder. "Cut it off!"

Unfortunately, once the AI was able to find a foothold into the system, it made sure to jam it and hold it open for him to deliver the rest of the virtual bomb. The virtual bomb was a minute clone copy of the AI specifically designed for only three things: to infiltrate, subdue, and eradicate. Normally, any earth borne computer program would not have an easy time with the alien, yet antiquated Goa'uld system, the AI on board the Halcyon, however, was not a normal one.

The AI's base programming was designed by a man way ahead of his time. Rather than using the regular algorithms commonly found by those still experimenting with AI in its current stages, the combined Starks inside Xander's head went the other route and used Shi'ar based algorithms for faster computation and information integration as its starting system foundation. Meaning that the AI can handle endless streams of multiple calculations in less than a nanosecond - making it the first "Stark" created human/Shi'arian hybrid computer program that can multi-task tirelessly without fail. As time passed, and Xander was able to upgrade his technology, he poured everything first into making sure Jarvis was light years ahead. He added in his own personality profile and the AI was now able to match him in quips and humor. In fact, the AI was now more of a digital brother since he and his creator can almost think alike in some aspects. Xander also took a page out of Isaac Asimov's three laws of robotics and added a loyalty subroutine that made sure it would stay on the same page as Xander in his ideals of protecting the human race.

The Halcyon-delivered virtual bomb dove through the Goa'uld mothership's data net with wariness at first, but then started to speed up as it gained more access through every system once it found there was no active contesting AI within the mainframe. It created minor glitches here and there that would cause them to panic in the long run. Whatever useful information it found, it sent back to the Halcyon through to the still-open communications port and to the Halcyon data storage. Once satisfied it was able to glean as much information as it possibly could, it started taking the data network down, causing havoc aboard the ship as every minor system tied to the major ones malfunctioned. While "Hal" wasn't able to completely override the main systems because it was still unfamiliar with the alien software, it did what it could to cause as much chaos as possible with what it was able to access.

"My Lord!" The false god's first prime cried. "We are receiving ship-wide systems disturbances!"

"I can see that, fool!" The Goa'uld growled as he wrestled with his own console from where he sat in trying to determine exactly where the problem originated. Only to find a yellow smiley face with a tongue lolling out at him when he called for a status display that caused his eyes to go wide as saucers as the speakers on board the ship started blaring "Born to be wild".

"Shut down that infernal noise while you're at it." The Goa'uld screamed in impotent rage as he blew the console out with a well-placed blast from his wrist device.

"I am trying to, my Lord." His first grunted in reply, frustrated at his own lack of results. "Whatever is affecting our systems has also jammed the communications relay. I am unable to coordinate with the death gliders outside of the ship as well as those we have yet to launch."

"Well then GET down there to order a manual launch!" His god commanded. "Or I will launch you outside the airlock myself!"

Abandoning his efforts with the console, the first prime ran from the throne room to do just that lest his god really did chuck him out of the ship.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Outside of the huge spacecraft, Xander was leading the remainder of the Goa'uld death gliders on a merry chase, making sure they focused their attention on him rather than the people inside the Tok'Ra shuttle that was scrambling to repair their engines at a breakneck pace. Rock music kept pouring out much to all of their annoyance as the AI ran through the playlist while the virtual bomb did its work. Scorpions gave way to Guns and Roses, then Twisted Sister, Metallica, Def Leppard, Queen, Poison, Cobra, Rob Zombie, Nirvana, and Black Sabbath as Xander made a mockery of the death glider squadron while taking potshots at the mothership whenever he was close enough. Though the repulsor canons worked very well against the gliders, it still wasn't enough to punch through the huge ship's armor to damage it sufficiently.

This fact made Xander a little creative as he played chicken several times with some of the gliders and more than often, led most of the stupider ones crashing into the pyramid ship's outer hull at the last second.

"Hal." Xander called to his on board AI as he cast a worried glance at the weapons console. He was down to two pulse missiles and the energy stores for the repulsor canons were running low before it completely shuts down for a two-hour self-recharge. "Any news on the VB? I've almost used up the power modules for the primary weapons."

"I am almost done, sir." The AI intoned. "But I need a few more minutes, it seems the virtual bomb has found something significant inside the mothership and is uploading it to my data storage pod."

Xander grunted back at the AI as he blew the last death glider to bits, only to start cursing when he saw the damned mothership had launched another squadron.

"Fucktards! They're like dog shit, they're EVERYWHERE!" The young genius cursed and programmed in an idea that just popped into his head. "Hal, go to Alpha flight mode and use the smaller canons to stretch our remaining resources. I'm detaching and going solo on the Pulse booster."

"Sir!" The AI said, alarmed. "You are not sufficiently shielded from their energy weapons once you detach from the Halcyon's combat mode defense shields."

"Then be sure to cripple them faster, Hal!" Xander commanded as he ejected, flying past the larger machine as it changed into its primary Alpha flight mode configuration. Both man and machine switched directions and met the new squadron head on, firing as they went.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Jack thought that it was over for their strange rescuer when he saw that the person ejected from his craft. Fully expecting an explosion from the abandoned craft, his jaw hit the deck when said craft AND pilot did an about face and charged the new fighter squadron, causing twice the amount of damage now that there were two of them facing the new batch of death gliders.

"Did you guys see that?" He asked as he pinched himself to see if he really was awake and not inside the X-301, still unconscious.

"That we did, O'Neill." Teal'c said; the tone of his voice uncharacteristically awed in spite of himself.

Daniel's jaw was just permanently unhinged for the duration as he watched the incredible battle going on outside the ship.

Never let it be said that Jack O'Neill would ever be anything else other than be Jack O'Neill as he finally said. "I WANT ONE OF THOSE!"

The rest of them would have rolled their eyes at the typical child-like response from Jack when he saw something he liked if not for the fact that they were thinking exactly the same thing.

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Xander knew that the moment he split off from the Halcyon that he would have to make a lot of riskier moves in taking down the gliders against him. Although his palm repulsors were powerful enough on their own, they lack the punch in space as they were for use inside an atmosphere. That was why he designed the larger repulsor canons for missions such as these.

As it was, he made sure to get up close and personal with the current gliders, getting a little pickier with his choice of targets. Rather than aiming for the glider as a whole, he aimed for the weakest points: the canopy. A part of him felt a little sick whenever he passed over a canopy and fired, seeing the pilots up close reminded him all too well that it wasn't a game. Like it or not, he had already become a killer. However, instead of wallowing in self-pity over the lives he took, he got angrier at the callous disregard for life that their so-called god had for his subjects.

He really tried his best not to throw up inside the armor over what he had to do and concentrated on survival.

While he evaded the remaining death gliders in their hair-raising, but futile attempts of killing him, his mind worked on a permanent solution to finish this donnybrook before he completely exhausted all of his resources as the Halcyon provided covering fire on his flank.

"Hal." He called out to the larger machine flying alongside him. "Just how good is the jamming signal we put up?"

"Quite satisfactory, I would say." The AI replied. "As long as I am within reasonable range, I can hold it indefinitely. What do you have in mind?"

"You told me that the SG team that faced off against the Goa'uld called Ra blew his ship to bits by delivering a portable high-yield nuclear device inside the ship, right?" Xander asked while he got between two death gliders and did a figure-eight roll as he targeted both canopies and blew them out, reducing the squadron down to only one fighter left.

"Aye, sir, that is correct, but we do not have any nuclear-grade weapons amongst our standard arms payload." Hal said, wondering what his creator was thinking.

"What are the odds if I charged the pulse booster and threw it down their open throats?" He asked.

"Sir!" Hal said in shocked surprise. "What you are suggesting is highly dangerous, not to mention a gross overkill. The pulse booster carries a class 2.753, stabilized zero-point energy micro-reactor. While not as powerful as the class 4 on board the Halcyon, the booster's power output dwarfs the bomb Col. O'Neill used against Ra by a very wide margin! The odds of surviving a blast at close range, is a dismal 15 at best when you factor in naquadah the Goa'uld uses for a power source."

"Who wants to live forever?" Xander asked rhetorically as he finished off the final glider and aimed himself towards the nearest open hangar bay, his pulse booster flared on the way.

As an afterthought, he signaled the no longer listing Tok'Ra scout ship after a quick scan.

-0-0-0-0-0-

They saw the silver pilot and his collapsed ship as they finished off the last death glider and head straight for the mothership. Those watching from within the shuttle would have continued with their stunned stupor if it wasn't been for the loud chirp coming from their com line the moment both Carters had returned from the aft compartment. Sam activated the channel to hear the words that addressed them in unaccented English.

"To the people inside the rescue ship that helped the humans..." A mechanical-sounding voice came from the speakers. "My scans indicate you have finished emergency repairs, so I would advise you to put as much distance as you can from this area with the best speed you can muster."

"What?" Jacob asked in confusion as he signaled back. "Why? Not that we're grateful for the help, but who are you?"

"A concerned citizen." The voice replied. "Now get out of here!"

They watched in confusion as the silver pilot and his collapsed ship dove into the open maw of the mothership's hangar bay.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Xander whistled when he saw the interior of the ship after he cleared the area inside the Goa'uld ship hangar. These Goa'uld were very vain, very materialistic, and very, very stupid to coat their walls with gold-like paint. Gold happened to be a VERY good conductor for energy, especially electricity.

He activated his chest repulsor beam and tunneled through a third of the ship in an attempt to dig as far as he could towards the engine room as per the Halcyon's instructions. He stopped after a few seconds as his chest plating vented smoke from the discharge.

On to phase two, he thought and started charging the pulse booster on his back for maximum thrust and unlocked the safeties he built within to stabilize the zero-point energy micro-reactor.

A large screen on the far wall that managed to escape severe damage sputtered to life as the Goa'uld in command of the vessel faced him.

"Who ARE you to dare defy your God?" The alien said, its eyes glowing with self-righteous anger.

Xander glared back at the alien from within his armor, the dour expression of his gold-faced helmet seemingly reflecting the smoldering rage within as the familiar strains of a certain Black Sabbath song filtered throughout the ship. He had dropped the Silver Paladin mode of disguise earlier to uncover the chest repulsor so it could fire.

"I dare because I can…" He replied. "I dare because your kind enslaved humankind for your longevity and vanity."

His next words coincided with the song's chorus as he finished.

"I dare because I am IRON MAN." He said as he fired the pulse booster and quickly let go of the clamps that adhered the booster to his back, bending as if in a bow to aim it on a ballistic trajectory inside the tunnel he carved with his chest repulsor.

"Hasta la vista motherfucker!" He ended the transmission by blowing the wall screen to bits as the Goa'uld on the other end started to panic, then Xander hurried towards the reconfigured Halcyon and rode it out like a bat out of hell.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Wondering what was going on, Jacob consulted the ship's sensor array, only to pale the moment his eyes saw the readout just as they caught sight of their mysterious ally as he flew out a few minutes later like the hounds of hell was after him.

"Everyone hang on!" He yelled as he threw the ship in a one-hundred eighty degree spin and joined their retreating rescuer at full speed.

The resulting explosion behind them was something akin to a small sun gone supernova as charged particles and vaporized debris hit both the shuttle and the Halcyon and sent them careening out of control into deep space as spatial distortions that resulted from the destabilized pulse booster washed over them.

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To Be Continued

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	16. Chapter 16

XANDER HARRIS: THE IRON TAU'RI  
By:"Gunsmith3000"  
Started 5-19-08  
Completed: ??

Disclaimers: Nothing belongs to me other than this insane idea I have that just won't let go. Iron Man belongs to Marvel, Stargate SG1 belongs to Paramount. Buffy belongs to Joss Whedon.

Summary: Xander goes as one of his favorite marvel comic characters, but gets more than he's bargained for.

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"The Other Shoe..."

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The last thing Jack O'Neill ever expected to see after coming out of his second bout of unconsciousness inside an alien spacecraft was the face of his friend, the Asgard Supreme Fleet Commander, Thor. The second face he saw was more expected as it was his second in command, Major Samantha Carter.

"Thor?" Jack asked groggily as he took Sam's offered hand as they helped him sit up. "Izzat you old buddy?"

"It is indeed I, Colonel O'Neill." The diminutive, but powerful alien said in reply. "One of our routine long range scans into your system picked up a strange gravimetric spatial disturbance just outside of your planetary cluster. When we came to investigate, we found you and your Tok'Ra ally drifting in space with almost no power."

"Huh." Jack said as he tried to get up. "What happened?"

"We picked a phenomenon that almost resembled a reverse black hole, artificially made." Thor said, slightly amused at how his human friend was staring at him as if he had lost his sanity.

"The only thing I know that is the reverse of a black hole is a... I have no idea." Jack said slowly.

"In your terms, it would be like a big bang." The small alien affirmed.

"That's impossible." Jack said as he felt the need to pace. "That's crazy talk. There's no way a power of that magnitude could be artificially made."

"And yet, we see the reality before us, O'Neill." Thor said as he brought up the display showing the area their scout ship had once been. "According to my sensors, the targeted location showed spatial distortions previous thought to be only theory amongst our people."

"What kind of distortions?" Jack turned and saw that Sam had kept silent up to this point, a sign that her mind was in overdrive in trying to understand the facts behind such a feat.

Turning to a wall, the gray alien activated the wall screen and projected the data he and his subordinates had gathered on the phenomenon. He tweaked the controls to start translating the Asgardian text into English.

"There are spatial anomalies that range from gravimetric to temporal eddies akin to such natural phenomena such as the black holes and its cousin, the white dwarf, and then something else unidentifiable as of yet." The explained as he pointed to the energy readings beside the display. "However, the effect is a bit puzzling because there were two outcomes to the explosion."

"We tried to do a mock-up of what might have occurred." Sam put in as the screen switched to show a computer model of the Goa'uld mothership. "This is what we think happened to the ship, and this is partly confirmed by whatever was left of the logs from the Tel'tak before it burned out."

The screen showed a representation of the mothership actually "squeezing" itself inwards like a cartoon before it finally exploded outwards in what Jack would term as the mother of all explosions as some sort of energy wave and the vaporized remains of the Goa'uld ship was pushed outwards from the blast. Thor enlarged a section of the blast and O'Neill could see some sort of ripple effect coming from the center of the explosion.

"What the hell was that?" Jack said.

"We are still analyzing the data, O'Neill." Thor replied. "We will let you know when we have finished. However, Major Carter has briefed me in regards to the appearance of your new friend."

"Silver type dude?" Jack asked. "Riding some sort of blue ship that seemed to have a mind to fly on its own when it wants? Sounded like Robocop on the speakers?"

Sam had to smirk at Thor's bewildered expression at the way Jack described their unknown Samaritan. While she had to agree with that assessment, she doubt Thor would understand the pop culture reference at the end.

"From what little we could gather from the Tok'Ra Tel'tak." Thor continued as he finally chose to ignore his human friend's irregularities and went on with the discussion as he hid the alien urge to twitch at that remark. "The technology your new acquaintance had at his or her disposal appeared to be quite impressive. It seemed to have used a different type of Zero-Point Energy power source that is hard to pin down."

"Speaking of which…" Jack said as he looked at the two of them. "What of our new friend. He or she all right?"

At this, Thor blinked while Sam turned to face the alien as they waited for an answer.

"You were the only ones within this region of space our ship picked up." Thor replied. "Of you new friend, we found no trace other than the evidence saved within the Tok'Ra Tel'tak's mainframe."

"I would suggest you people rest for the moment." Thor continued. "We will be on route to Earth once our scans have finished with this region. Your other companions are already waiting in one of our suites."

The Asgard Supreme Fleet Commander bid his farewell for the moment as he went to oversee the data gathered. Once he was through the door, Jack turned back to his second in command.

"How long was I out?" He asked.

"Longer than the others." She replied. "About a couple of hours. Thor was right when he said that they found us listing in space. We were running on emergency power when they spotted us. Whatever that guy detonated inside the ship also knocked out our power supply real bad when the energy wave and debris field hit us."

"Do you think he knew what would happen?" He asked while he rubbed a sore spot on his neck as he contemplated his second near miss with certain death.

"Probably up to an extent, sir, at least that was my guess." Sam conferred. "After all, he did warn us beforehand to leave ASAP; we just didn't take the warning seriously."

"Lucky us." Jack groaned, knowing he would have done the same thing Jacob did and would have indeed stuck around to watch whatever happened. "Do you think that guy made it out okay?"

"I really can't say for sure." Sam thought as they started moving to where the others were waiting. "But before I lost consciousness, I was able to see him/her or it tumbling off into space in the other direction. It's possible his craft may have been shielded to a certain level and may have righted itself a few moments later."

"Well, I hope for our sakes that he's okay." Jack said as they paused before the suite where the rest of his team was in. "I've got a bunch of questions for him about that sweet ride of his and where I can get one."

Sam rolled her eyes at the typical response, but nonetheless agreed with his statement since she also wanted to get her hands on the tech their mysterious savior had employed in their defense. To actually get to see and learn of how a real zero-point energy generator worked would go a long way to helping them create safe and almost unlimited source of power.

-0-0-0-0-0-

The duo entered their assigned suite for the duration of their flight back to Earth just in time to catch Daniel trying to placate Jacob and Selmak's probing questions in regards to their new mystery.

"For the last time…" Daniel said through clenched teeth. "We haven't made contact with any new races that the Tok'Ra didn't already know about. We don't even know who that guy was, much less think that he's one of us."

"Then how do you explain his choice of music?" Jacob asked again.

"I told you I don't… Jack! Sam!" Daniel exclaimed as they entered the suite. "Help me out here, guys. I've run out of ideas."

"Jacob, cool it." Jack said as he sat down beside a meditating Teal'c. "No, we don't know who that was. No, we haven't been screwing around with any other alien technology other than the damned X-301, although I would like to point out I wanna know where he gets his stuff because I want one too. And finally -- NO, we haven't met anyone out here yet that you guys didn't know about. Any more questions? No? Good."

"Oh, and I'm fine by the way, thanks for asking." Jack looked around the suite and concluded to a gaping Jacob with a few choice words as he sighed. "Man, am I beat."

Teal'c opened his eyes, and nodded in acknowledgement of his friend and settled into a relaxed position as he came out of his trance.

Frustrated, the human Tok'Ra turned to look at his daughter.

"Don't give me that look, Dad." Sam said. "I'm giving you just the same answer they did. We really don't know who that was. Music aside, I've never seen anything like it. According to the Asgard, whatever destroyed the Goa'uld ship was powerful enough to create gravimetric spatial distortions."

Jacob stiffened when he felt Selmak's reaction of surprise. The human host bowed his head as Selmak took over. "Are you sure about the distortions?

"Not a hundred percent." Sam hedged. "But from what we've seen so far, it is a possibility. Why?"

"I do not know." Selmak spoke. "Maybe it is something, maybe nothing. For some reason it seems familiar, like I should know it. Our racial memory carries with each generation, and before the Goa'uld split as a race, somewhere in our very, very distant past must have experienced or heard of something similar."

Just then, the wall screen near them burst to life as they saw Thor appear on the screen. "I have finished studying the preliminary data we combined from the damaged Tok'Ra Tel'tak with our own readings and have come to a startling hypothesis."

"Don't keep us in suspense, old buddy." Jack said from where he sat. "Out with it."

"The probable weapon that was used to destroy the Goa'uld mothership shared a ten percent similarity to Alteran technology up to a point." Thor said as he superimposed a graph on the right side of the screen to show the readings taken from the destroyed mothership standing beside another graph that represented the Alteran, or Ancient Zero-Point Module. "As you may have noticed, there are points in the graph between the two that closely resembles an Alteran ZPM device, but like I said, only up to a point. It seems whatever you new ally used could be more efficient than the ones the Alterans used to power their ships."

"How much more efficient?" Both Carters asked at the same time.

"Enough not to cause energy bleeds." Thor replied. "But there is more, the resulting distortion wave have caused us to review certain files long thought to be useless."

"Huh?" Jack said intelligently.

"There was a cautionary tale passed on throughout our history." Thor explained. "…Of a mysteriously powerful avianoid race that had disappeared long before my people's advent into space. One of our first interstellar explorers discovered an abandoned planet in a remote star system filled with such technology we haven't yet begun to understand. In their haste to learn, they activated some sort of device that doomed them all."

"What happened?" Daniel asked, curious as to where this was going.

"The device started a chain reaction that caused not only planet-wide stress on that planet alone, but created a resonating spatial distortion that jumped from one planet to the next until it reached inwards into their twin suns, detonating it."

The statement stunned everyone in the room.

"The last transmission from that expedition was a cry for help that could never be answered." Thor said with finality. "To this day, we have had no such success in finding any trace of their kind of technology since. As if that was the only world where it existed and they all vanished."

"And you think whoever this was either has access to this type of technology or was a part of this mysterious race?" Daniel asked as he tried to put the puzzle together. "But why now? It makes even less sense if you include the music."

"I do not know." Thor said. "It is only one of our theories because the only other distortion wave we recorded that was a minute match, and a poor one at that, was in the very story I have related to you. There were very little correlating data during that era in our history, but we have learned since then. The closest thing we have thought that might have resembled a possible match in the direction of their technology lay with the Alterans. Unfortunately, we have no way to gauge if any of our theories are correct. We could be wrong."

"What about the Nox?" Sam asked. "Do they have an idea?"

Thor leveled her with a penetrating stare. "If they do, then they have not said anything in that regard because we have encountered the Nox first before encountering the Alterans."

"We are already nearing geosynchronous orbit above the SGC." He announced. "Jacob and Selmak, I am sorry to say that the damage to the Tel'tak was quite extensive and that repairs are no longer an option. However, your data core is still partly functional and we have removed it for you for easy transport."

Thor closed the connection and thought about Samantha Carter's question. He didn't bother to try to explain that the main "technology" the Nox preferred was actually defined as a form of perfected "Technomancy" – as spoken in the human language. The little gray alien had an inkling that idea would not sit well with Samantha Carter, or with the Tok'Ra in their regards to science.

Magic was simply a different level beyond mere science that dealt with the primal essence of the universe in its purest (and sometimes impure) form. To the Nox, it was a science onto itself.

Besides, he thought, they are still too young to go beyond their current concepts of what science can yield. They still have a very long way to go, his only hope that his race lived long enough to see where they went.

He also wondered about the mysterious stranger that had saved his friends. Could it be possible? That the long, lost, hidden race had finally surfaced after countless eons. If so, could they help in prolonging his peoples' certain demise? Maybe they could even help them. Despite pure logic, which drove his race onwards, Thor began to feel faint traces of illogical hope at the possible prospect.

However, he thought, should it become another dead end, the knowledge still gained after such an encounter would not be completely useless.

He moved out of the command chair to join his friends for transport back to the SGC. He decided that he needed more information as well as pick something up without them knowing.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Back on Earth, the faint signal Jarvis was tracking suddenly flared then disappeared. After he ran analysis after analysis on his readings, he called Janna and Kendra, and then raised Anna on her new phone and patched Janna through.

One of Xander's preprogrammed contingencies just came up.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Anna was already ready to board the private flight Xander had arranged for their trip back when her new cell phone rang. Those that heard Black Sabbath's "Iron Man" as her ring tone gave her a look as she blushed when she took it out of her purse. She swore to figure out how to change the tone later to "I'll Fly With You", she was more of a Gigi D'Agostino fan herself.

Their looks of amusement over her choice of music turned into looks of veiled curiosity when they saw the strange semi-transparent black phone with barely any buttons. More than a few sidled a bit closer to glance at the phone from behind her.

One of the women, obviously a tech junkie, was openly stunned when she saw the attractive woman put her thumb on the blank face and an almost typical phone display appeared on the bank surface in full color like a hologram.

The woman shook her head. It really WAS a holographic display!

"Sis!" The teen beside the gaping woman whispered as she elbowed her elder sister. "Shut yer gob, yer drooling over yer suit!"

"Shhh!" Her sister replied, still entranced as the display on the other woman's phone reconfigured and turned into a handheld TV with another woman's face on the screen animatedly talked to the one holding the phone. She wondered why there were no sounds coming from the device, then glanced at the woman and frowned as she saw an earpiece with a glowing blue light with no wires blinking in time with the blue light on the phone.

Where the hell did she get her toys? The woman thought to herself enviously.

-0-0-0-0-0-

"WHAT?" Anna exclaimed as Janna relayed the news to her. It seemed her new boss ended up missing in space and a hidden protocol popped up inside the AI's mainframe in case a situation happened and ordered a recall of those in the know. "All right, I'll let the others know that I won't be going with them because an emergency came up. Say what? A video for us? Okay, I'll grab the first taxi I see outside."

"Enyos!" Anna called to her second as she closed the connection and her new phone dimmed then turned off automatically after a second of touching the surface in a circular manner. "Something's come up in Sunnydale that needs my attention; you'll all have to go back without me. Just let the council know about my decision."

"Understood, but do you need help?" Janna's father asked at Victoria's prodding from behind him.

Anna had to fight off a laugh at how Enyos's youngest daughter easily twisted her father's arm. Whipped, she thought.

Smirking, she nodded and the two made to run out of the airport when they turned to meet the slack-jawed face of one of the incoming passengers for the other flights.

"Uh, can I help you?" Anna asked, wondering what caused the poor girl in front of her to look the way she did.

"I apologize about my sister." The younger woman beside the frozen woman said. "But she went gaga over your phone and froze like that. You wouldn't happen to know where we can get one like that, huh?"

"It's a company phone, sorry." Anna said as she gathered up her things to leave the airport. "I hate to leave on a lurch, but we really have to go, emergency meeting."

"What company?" One of the other passengers waiting for another flight asked as he had also gotten a good look at her new phone.

"Pal-Core Industries!" She replied as both Kalderash women ran out of the airport.

The one who asked stared after the departing duo and glanced at the magazine he was holding. Displayed on the front cover of the Times was the title: "Paladin Core Industries: Starting big, and getting bigger!"

He took out his trusty, but clunky Nokia, and dialed a number from memory then waited for the other person on the other end to pick up. "Hey Bill, you'll never believe what I just saw today. I think I may have an idea for our next six-year stretch projects. I know it's not our line, but what do you think about multi-media mobile phones? "

-0-0-0-0-0-

A solid month had passed since the emergency meeting after Xander's disappearance happened and they met again, this time with a somber quality in the air.

"It's time." Janna said. "We've been trying for a month now to hide it while we tried everything in our powers to scry for him, the only thing we do know is that he isn't dead. I think its time they knew about this. I want to go on record that though I agree with the decision; I also think they won't like it one bit."

"So noted, I for one, do not care what they will or will not like." Jarvis declared from his position on the wall screen. "I am simply following orders and am still forever loyal to Xander and to his cause. If they do decide to do something rash, I can still protect you and myself even though I do not have the level of technomancy to be a threat. I have enough data on them to BE a threat to them economically and sociably should things get out of hand."

"Well." Anna said from the other end of the table. "Let's get on with it, then. I've got my fridge stocked with enough booze to get rid of the all mighty headache that's sure to pop up after this."

The doors to Xander's office opened up and admitted the entirety of the Scooby Gang, led by the Xander LMD, their faces full of curiosity as to why they were being called in.

"Hello Rupert, Ms Summers, Mrs. Summers, Oz, Ms Chase, and Ms Rosenberg!" Janna greeted from where she sat on Xander's desk, her face schooled with a grim smile. "All of you; please take a seat. We will begin shortly. Of course, you know my cousin, Anna. And the young lady with the cane beside her is Kassandra Rhodes."

"Now, I know why all of you are wondering why you're here." Anna said as she rose to join her cousin at the desk and sat beside her on the desktop. "You're all here because of one man, namely: Alexander (Don't ever mention the middle name, Lavelle) Harris."

Willow chuckled a bit at that. "What about Xander?" She asked while she pointed at the LMD. "He's right over here."

"That's not really Xander." A disembodied voice filled the air.

"What?" Buffy exclaimed as she jumped out of her seat to face the LMD, her stake barely grazing the android's chest as it dodged and subdued her with a classic wrestling hold that negated any leverage she might have used with her enhanced strength.

"What's the meaning of this?" Giles glared at his former girlfriend, his Ripper persona fully out and in play.

Wordlessly, the two Kalderash women pointed at the far wall to their left as the screen embedded on it came to life, showing the real Xander's face as the recording greeted them.

"Hey all!" Xander said, smiling at the camera. "For those of you who still aren't sure, yes, I'm the real Xander Harris."

Then the expression of Xander in the video turned a few degrees colder as he spoke. "A lot of things have happened and this is one of those things I came fully prepared for when I signed up to join the good fight my way. If you're all watching this recording, then something went FUBAR. If I already told you guys what I really do when I'm not around you, then this should be a bit easier to swallow. But on the other hand, if that's not the case…"

The Xander in the screen paused as he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "If that isn't the case, then sit down, shut up, and DON'T even think of bothering the pretty ladies who work for me until I am through. That's non-negotiable. It's my story to tell. Got it? Good. Now, this whole thing started during Halloween. Yes, Willow, THAT Halloween where we turned into our costumes…"

They all sat, and they all listened. A few hours later, Willow was the first to run from the room in tears, Cordelia followed, and finally, Buffy.

"How could this have happened right under my nose?" Giles asked Jenny, his own tears replaced the anger he felt earlier when they first came in.

"You guys were just too busy with everything else to see it." A new voice answered him.

They all turned to see someone emerge from the darkened corner of the room.

"Hi." The stranger greeted them. "My name is Eternity, and I have business with all of you."

No one moved as they all stared at him in wonder.

"One of you might want to get your other friends in the hall for this. I really do need to talk to all of you." He said as he waved a hand at them to see if they haven't frozen solid because as far as he could tell, he hadn't stopped time yet.

They kept on staring at him. "Hello?" He wave his hand at them again.

He sighed. Honestly, Eternity thought, slightly annoyed. Its not like they haven't seen him before. After all, he was all they ever saw whenever they look up to the stars in the heavens at night.

But then again, he mused, rarely do the stars LITERALLY talk back to people in this manner. He blamed the PTB for screwing that up, for which the Creator commanded him to step in and replace them in regards to this mess.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Xander awoke with a gummy taste in his mouth. Blinking at the harsh glare of the overhead light, he suddenly realized that he was naked and strapped to some sort of operating table.

What the hell happened, and where the hell was his armor? Where the hell was Hal?

"Ah, good, you're awake." A voice coming from the far right said. "I have some questions for you."

The voice's owner came into view, and caused Xander to yelp in shock.

"I have tried to clone you and have failed in all of my attempts." The Roswell Gray looking creature said as it leaned close to him. "Though you may look like the Tau'ri, you are not."

"So please tell me." It asked; curiosity evident in its soft tones. "What species are you?"

Xander should have been scared, but instead, that query completely erased the fear from his face and replaced it with an indignant expression as he cried out in outrage.

"What the hell are you talking about?"

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To Be Continued

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Long A/N: The first part of this chapter was a bit of a challenge to write... I kept deleting it and starting over but somehow it wound up the way it did most of the time, so I figured that, if that was the case; I may as well milk it and fix it to go where it wanted to go and so forth even though it would turn out the way it did.

In any case, while the conversation between Thor may seem like Xander's tech is way up there, its reality, its not. They are only going about it with what they know. Xander's stuff isn't really that super advanced, just radically different because of the combined knowledge in his head. They are overestimating him based on the unintended result of what he did to destroy the Goa'ld ship. The Pulse booster was never intended as a weapon at all.

And yes, I am taking a page on one of the real life theories my group of friends sometimes pander to. Their theory is that some of the fictional stuff (i.e. comics, sci-fi novels, etc) are actually windows to another reality where it actually happened. In my story, a version of the Shi'ar or Aerie race did evolve in their universe -- but all of them mysteriously vanished. I used Giles's standard opening speech concerning the Slayer myth/legend to include the universe at large and not just Earth as the basis for that. There had to be someone else to have reached a peak in their evolution in the distant past -- and that evolution keeps on going forwards giving us the others like the Asgard, the Nox, and the Alterans, in its place once they are gone.

...also a shout out to a reviewer in FF dot Net named TJG -- some of his/her ideas are actually dead-on with what I want Xander to accomplish in the future as the story progresses.

Until next time, hope you all liked this chapter.

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As usual, rewrites and corrections will occur now and then from time to time. Please feel free to archive this anywhere as long as you let me know you want to.

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	17. Chapter 17

XANDER HARRIS: THE IRON TAU'RI  
By:"Gunsmith3000"  
Started 5-19-08  
Completed: ??

Disclaimers: Nothing belongs to me other than this insane idea I have that just won't let go. Iron Man belongs to Marvel, Stargate SG1 belongs to Paramount. Buffy belongs to Joss Whedon.

Summary: Xander goes as one of his favorite marvel comic characters, but gets more than he's bargained for.

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"...Comes Tumbling Down."

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Loki stared at his latest specimen that lay on the examining table that he put in deliberate stasis for a month. So far, the subject had been a very puzzling study as he had not yet been able to create a copy under controlled conditions. At first glance, the subject was classified as a Tau'ri, though it was puzzling at how found it drifting inside such a radical piece of technology.

In some ways, the rogue Asgard scientist saw that the alien hardware it had to pry off unconscious form was almost comparable to their own in some levels, yet was also a bit primitive at the same time. Though he would be the first to admit that engineering was not his forte, he could appreciate the level of technology the subject had on him. Some of the principles that lay as the groundwork for the exosuit the subject wore had Replicator-like properties, but if the alien had to guess, the nanites that comprised most of the areas within the suit definitely did not exhibit any of the Replicator characteristics that would pose a threat to his ship.

They even had separate functions! He could tell which ones were for medical use for its host and which was for the repair systems for the suit itself. The metallic suit itself was a puzzle. Though it looked primitive, the design was intriguingly different from anything he had come across. All outward appearances gave it the impression of being actual armor. Upon closer inspection, it was not. Each component was composed of grain-of-sand-like hexagonal scales of an unknown metallic substance. The metal's properties had a unique design to them; he could even dare say it was bio-mechanically engineered in a fashion that was still unheard of. While it wasn't completely as advanced as it looked, the level of ingenuity that produced this type of result made the little Asgard renegade giddy at the prospect of learning more.

The Tau'ri-like specimen was even more of a puzzle; while his tech was easy to explain, the specimen was not. From all inner and outward appearances, the biological makeup superficially matches them, but upon closer and in-depth inspection, he was not. Cellular rate of regeneration was almost beyond standard acceptable norms classified for that species, even without the primitive nanites helping the specimen's body recover. Muscle density was also above the norms per comparison scans he filched from Thor on one Jack O'Neill and the others he had experimented on for the past few years since he had been visiting the Tau'ri race unbeknownst to his own people.

More out of habit than not, Loki immediately tried to clone the subject for further study. That was when things started to go in the wrong direction. The first clone did not survive the process, and neither did the second or third attempts. Annoyed, the renegade Asgard tried to recalibrate his systems and started over, but his dismay, it made matters worse. The clones now had trouble surviving the gestation period. Puzzled beyond belief, the alien studied the clone samples against the original and was stunned at the subtle, but major shift in molecular genetics.

Unable to find out why he was unable to clone the specimen, he decided to wake him up and ask it several pertinent questions.

The way the specimen answered his first query brought the first of many veins to bulge on his head.

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Xander just glared at the Roswell gray in front of him

"What the hell do you mean 'What species' am I?" He said.

He got his answer when Loki pointed to a screen that suspicious looked like a real-time medical readout. It was undoubtedly his.

Except, for a few glaring errors. While it passed as human per standard Terran equipments, anything else like that of the Asgard would notice the subtle differences.

"What the hell did you do to me?" He bellowed towards the alien.

Loki was taken aback at the vehemence. "I have done nothing to you except try to clone you. I only took genetic samples from your body."

"Then what do you call that?" He spat as he jerked his head towards the readings.

"I was lead to believe they were your normal baseline parameters." Loki replied honestly. "I have never come across anything like your kind before. The closest thing matching your physiology is the Tau'ri."

Xander barely heard the little gray alien as he studied the readouts. He may have not had a physical in a while, but he could have sworn when he did his own physical months ago after the event that whatever changed him during Halloween was over and done with.

From the looks of things, it wasn't.

If what he saw on the alien screen that showed his current bio-readings were right, he just found out one of the reasons why he was a little stronger and healed a whole lot faster. While he wasn't able to spot it before when he did his own preliminary physical on his own body, it still didn't make a whole lot of sense.

The readings that showed on the screen told him, plain as day, that he was developing an X-gene. If that was the case, why was his body acting like it was already active?

He looked at the screen one more time, then back at his alien captor, his mind going off into different tangents.

"Get me out of this and we'll find out together." He said, finally coming up with a decision he could live with. "By the way, name's Xander."

If Loki had an eyebrow, it would have gone all the way up and down the other side of his side at the unexpected reply.

"I am Loki." The alien replied.

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Back on earth, Eternity had managed to get them out of their shell-shocked state and happily informed them that while Xander was still part of the demon-hunting group called "Scooby Gang" or "Scoobies" for short, but because of the Halloween incident and who a few people went as, the chess board drastically changed. Thanks to the costumes a few of them went as, the spell had some far-reaching consequences. Like Xander, a select rare few retained their memories and abilities.

Some inherently good, some were downright evil.

Then there was Eternity, a formerly unknown Sunnydalian named Richard Todd, the very first human to have become the Celestial humanoid representation of the Universe. Xander wasn't the only one who wanted to be unique during that fateful night. The former human had bought his black spandex costume at the same shop as well. The costume used to be a black Batman costume but was changed when the glue and the glitters he had placed onto the costume to represent stars and galaxies to emulate the real Eternity in the comics.

A vampire had gotten to him before the spell could activate, when it did, it produced some very surprising results as the "costume" permanently stuck to him and caused him to become part of the very fabric of existence the moment his soul was passing on into the afterlife.

It was enough to have caused a change that an Alan Rickman look-alike shanghaied him from the halfway point where souls were sent to be "processed" for judgment with a unique job offer for him directly from the Almighty.

To become the checks and balances of an antiquated system that badly needed an overhaul, while at the same time, serve as the humanoid representation of one of the first primal creations The Creator ever made: the universe.

It was a ridiculously overpowered job. The Creator told him that he wouldn't even be part of the doublet system like the rest. The Creator then commanded him to make sure everyone played fair, and then gave him more than enough power to back it up.

So it was that when the PTB's started their flawed plan in regards to those lives in Sunnydale, the Big Boss decided to have him step in.

Task one: manage Angel away from the PTB, commonly know amongst the younger Angelic choir as the Pricks That Be.

Task two; make sure no one messes too much with Xander's newfound purpose, meaning that to the PTB, he is off limits.

Task three; let the Slayer team called the "Scooby Gang" know that - while Xander, through a twist of fate, had changed - they are not within their rights to alter Xander's decision in the long run, free will and all that. The last he said while he pointedly looked at Willow as he barked an order to Janna and Anna Kalderash to train the budding witch in the finer arts of Wiccan witchcraft and its moral repercussions if left unchecked.

Buffy, he advised to stem her bull-headedness and overblown sense of self or it would lead to her self-destruction, and drag others down with her. Pride can only go so far, he said, while he reminded the blond slayer of Xander's words when they crashed down in on Angel in his mansion. Buffy really was a good person deep down inside, but she just had too much emotional baggage sometimes. To Giles, he admonished the man to act more rationally and not let blind prejudice and preconceived notions cloud his judgment, and that time was supposed to make him wiser, not stupider.

To everyone else, he simply advised them not to lose sight of the truth and never lose faith even in the face of insurmountable odds. He winced internally as he told them this; time would only know when things would get worse before they got better.

He sighed once more before he faded into nothingness; there were a few things to set into motion after all, and give a certain minor deity a tongue-lashing for allowing a demented chaos worshiper to besmirch his name with a misplaced prayer past Samhain.

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With the help of Loki, Xander was able grasp the base knowledge behind the Asgardian technology and their science. While a few of the things he learned went over his head, he was able to familiarize himself with enough data to help with his own research on his still-changing condition while trying to find alternative means to escape the alien version of the nutty professor. As impressed as he was with the little mad scientist's goal in his drive to save his dying race at all costs, the way the twit went about it was so skewed that it bordered a thousand miles off on the moral compass. It reminded him of The Collector, with Doctor Doom-style sensibilities in regards to his governing and safekeeping of Latveria.

He was finally able to pin down at least part of his supposed "mutation". If his increasing knowledge was any indication, his possible mutation was akin to an X-man codenamed: Forge. In essence, he was some sort of Technomancer of the mutant variety, able to learn and adapt any technology to his needs.

While that answered a few of his questions, it did not explain how he had acquired something akin to the regenerative abilities that was at least a fourth's of Wolverine's. he was a bit smart enough to relay to the grey alien a little white lie when he said that everything is as it should be, and that it was "normal" for his alien "race". No need to give the little weasel info on an alternate universe full of mutants to play with if the Asgards had the ability to cross dimensions.

Now, if he could only find out where Loki stashed his suit and the Halcyon, he'd be a very happy camper.

Cricking his neck, he went to work on trying to coax the Asgard computer to divulge the location.

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Somewhere within the ship, Loki was again in front of the alien power armor and its sentient craft. So far, the craft had negated any inquiries Loki had in regards to its construction and programming. Annoyed, the diminutive alien worked on the armor and tested its nanorepair units by introducing Asgardian technology into the mix.

The armor's nanites were a little resistant at first, but after a bit of struggle, it accepted the new technology and slowly tried to incorporate it with its own systems with them as the dominant factor. Assured by the partial success, he tried to see what effects the nanites had on another piece of technology and see if it could subvert it to its own use as well.

It was a simple matter to transplant a few of the suit's micro-AI repair nanites and aim it towards the stasis pod that had the highest security level rating on the remotest part his ship that was away from any sensitive and prime materials.

Loki didn't have to wait very long, once the foreign nanites were inside the pod, it shuddered and convulsed on the monitor screen. He started to worry for a bit until the pod stopped moving. He looked away from the monitor as his hand reached for the diagnostic console for a closer scan. Suddenly, he heard a loud bang coming from the pod room over the monitor. Alarmed, he switched to an external view of the pod room and his already enlarged eyes widened further to comical proportions.

"Oops." He said as the pod lay in pieces when he saw that the supposedly dead remnants of the Replicator inside were now missing.

The little alien hit the panic button for a ship-wide hostile boarding alert and hover-chaired it to his labs at full speed, punching commands along the way.

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Inside the main laboratories, Xander's head snapped up at the sound of the alien klaxon. He had managed to coax the Asgard computer to show the possible location of his armor and weapons platform when it shut down in favor of blasting him with warning signals. According to the alien/English translation, a hostile intruder had gotten loose inside sector B-84, and that it was Loki who sent up the alarm.

The sound of a teleportation beam coalesced near him, reacting on autopilot, the young genius dove for cover. To his surprise, it was his armor. He went towards it and was further surprised to find it a bit different. It was in that moment that the door to the labs opened and a very panic stricken Loki scrambled inside aboard his hover chair.

"What the hell happened to my armor?" He growled towards the mad scientist.

"I have incorporated a few Asgardian technologies within your primitive suit to upgrade its operational capacity." Loki replied as he started arming his hover chair with advanced projectile weaponry he had copied and refined from the SGC. "I believe they would be of some help to you. Please put it on."

"I still don't even know what half of your stuff does!" Xander griped as he put it on, he found that some of the on board response time became was little quicker on some of them while others became even more sluggish as the system was still in the process of absorbing the new tech. "Why the hell am I even putting it on?"

"I have tried to integrate what little I have learned from your armor and pitted it against the remains of one of our deadliest enemies aside from our genetic instabilities." Loki replied. "I tried to see if it could subdue and subvert the remains of a Replicator."

"A what?" Xander exclaimed as he stared at the little alien that started to resemble a little grey Rambo. "You'd better start explaining, Loki."

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Techno alien bugs, he thought. The Marvel Universe got the Brood; I get the technological version of a self-replicating roach with a hunger fetish for anything advanced, Xander thought with a loud groan.

Xander was that close to erasing the demented Asgard for his stupidity. From what he had learned in the short amount of time afforded, the Replicators were like enlarged nanites with a singular drive to assimilate and replicate every technological "food" it could get its hands on. Somehow, Loki had managed to get his Stark-created nanites into the remains of one of the Replicators to see if it could assimilate the Replicator technology into itself.

Unfortunately, the Replicator sub-system programming imbedded with each dead part absorbed his own nanites instead and used it to repair itself.

That was good and bad news. Good news: he knew how to deal with his own systems, he had prepared contingencies in case any of his tech ever went rogue. The bad news was that he had little to no knowledge of how a Replicator worked, much less any of the Asgardian tech it had now supposedly assimilated.

"Run this by me again." He asked Loki. "Exactly what have you guys been able to glean on Replicator technology and on how their independent blocks actually worked?"

The grey scientist pointed to the readouts he displayed on the wall screen for Xander to study.

Inside Xander's mind, the Stark collective racked their combined minds for a solution. After a few seconds, they came up with a risky one.

"Loki." Xander said after a few moments of silence between them. "What do you have in the way of a matter/anti-matter energy dessipator machine?"

Loki stared at the person in front of him. "None." He replied.

"Then let's start building one." Xander said, in full Stark mode. "Show me what you've got and let's see if we can do this fast."

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Loki was amazed at the amount of resourcefulness that the being in front of him had. The supposedly human Tau'ri was a quick study once he had a crude grasp of basic Asgardian technology. His race had never gotten this idea past the theoretical stage because of the power requirements and the devastation it could possibly cause.

With the help of Xander, they were able to fine-tune the hastily cobbled heavy weapon onto the man's armor while Loki tied the other into the ship's mainframe to carry out a wideband pulse within the ship's own infrastructure. He hoped that would be enough for them.

Sufficiently armed, the two went to work to try to save his ship.

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Back on Earth, Kendra – now known widely as Kassandra Rhodes – was having the time of her life within the holo-simulation chamber while Anna monitored her vitals via the control room.

Her physical therapy was unlike any other as it not only included the basic exercises that most of the recovering patients got, but it also included basic armor training. The training sims also had a smart AI representation of Xander Harris as he instructed her on her armor's capabilities and how best to handle them even with her Slayer reflexes. In time, she would be ready to don the armor and take Xander's place in the interim in safeguarding the Hellmouth along with the Slayer and her Slayerettes. Also, the Slayer was briefed in regards to Kendra's upcoming involvement once she had sufficiently recovered. Buffy demanded to have an armor made for her as well, but here demand was shot down when she was told that only Xander knew how to make one from scratch and that not even Jarvis will give the go-ahead until he got the final OK from his Creator do so. No way in hell was the AI going to give out Iron Tech without Xander's express approval.

Life went on, as it always does. The summer had ended and school had was now in session once again at Sunnydale High, and the Slayer and her friends were thrust once more into adventure. Along with them, Kassandra Rhodes had also enrolled there for her last year of schooling. As the Jamaican Slayer finished her morning therapy, she left the room to get ready for her first day at school.

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In another part of town, a raven-haired teen woke up with a gasp, her nightmares of what happened before haunted her. Still shaking, she clambered into the shower of her dingy motel room. She had forced herself to run this far, she won't stop now. Not when something told her that this was where she was supposed to go.

She couldn't shake the feeling that no matter how bad the rep concerning the Hellmouth was, somewhere in this town lay her salvation.

Besides, this was the only place where rumors of a silver-armored being that fought against the darkness had originally come from.

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Back at the Asgard ship, somewhere out in the universe…

"I DON'T CARE!" Xander screamed at Loki as he fired another pulse at the oncoming Replicators. "We can't have them getting to the data files!"

"But all of my research is in there." The grey alien whined. "I must not lose all of them."

"Damn it, Loki!" Xander was beyond exasperated, they had been fighting non-stop for the past three hours by his reckoning. "Just get what little you need and PUNCH it!"

The small alien wasted no time as he took a memory cube crystal that barely managed to remain functional with his original work and activated the dessipator pulse tied to the ship's infrastructure and concentrated his attention back towards the battle on his main bridge.

The muted, low-level pulse was ignored by the remaining Replicators as the continued their onslaught against the organics within the weakening command center. Half a nanosecond later, which they supposedly measured in their version of years, what was left of the Replicators ground to a screeching halt just short of overwhelming the two organics.

The two combatants shook off their fatigued state in mid-combat as a loud groan followed their enemies' actions throughout the Asgardian ship as they got rid of the last of the Replicators infesting it. They shared a look and then glanced at the main viewer and it was a toss up as to whose eyes were widest in shock at what they saw. They had somehow strayed towards a planet and the ship was falling into its gravity well with the grace of a meteor.

They turned back to each other, then back at the viewscreen as they saw the that the ship's outer hull was already heating up abnormally fast in its mad plunge into the unknown planet, then back to face each other.

"Oh. Shit." Loki said in Asgardian.

"What you said." Xander muttered as he had a hunch that whatever the little psycho was saying was a curse as they both broke off and ran in the opposite direction.

Xander pounded towards the area where Loki had sequestered his weapons platform while the deranged little gray maniac hover-chaired it to his own personal escape shuttle.

Both were thinking that it was going to be one hell of a ride, in either direction. Neither noticed the memory cube Loki took accidentally drop onto the floor in his haste to get into his little escape ship before the larger vessel shook apart in its planetary entry.

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Night had fallen hours later planet-side as Xander walked gingerly around the crash site cursing a mile a minute about the things he'd like to do to the little alien pipsqueak if he ever got his hands on him. He would have died if he hadn't been able to get to his armored weapons platform and into the defensive shields of the Halcyon inside the doomed Asgard vessel in time. He was glad he was still in one piece with whatever the little weasel did to his armor. The alien's tampering with the Iron technology also caused it to incorporate some of the damned vessel's own Asgardian technology in the process, turning it into a bizarre mix of human/Shi'ar/Asgard hybrid thanks to the self-repair nanites that didn't just stop at simple repairs. Due to Loki's shenanigans, the nanites also incorporated Asgard technology into the units and created a unique mix that he had yet to study until the repairs and meshing were complete.

Xander and the Starks in his head designed the suit well, but now… it was hard to tell which part of the suit was his and which part belonged to the damned former Asgard ship. He was only marginally thankful that it was still operational even if half of the systems still seemed to be undergoing a metamorphosis of sorts as it affected his own "homebrew" Shi'ar based armor tech. It was a minor miracle that the safety purge override that was purely Shi'ar in its base security algorithms was still functional, as it was; his armor was now simply just that, armor until the modifications finished. The semi-sentient automated systems that helped control the internal stability of the Mark 1 as whole was dead after it had finally overcome the systems malfunction that Loki introduced into it when the midget psychopath attempted to alter it by combining Asgardian tech with his own without regards to failsafes. He was also using some of the Halcyon's self-repair bots to reboot his armor systems and pump in extra nanites to help him control the armor until he could get back to Earth and overhaul the entire suit.

He scanned the area around him one more time, but finding nothing of much importance amongst the downed vessel, at least those that he could understand enough to use. Disgusted at his misfortune, he made his way back to the Halcyon. According to the little twerp, they were located in one of the most remote areas of their quadrant in space that the Asgard had abandoned exploring before Xander's armor decided to take matters into its own hands. Deranged as he was, what Loki said made a bit of sense to him. If you really wanted to be alone to do whatever crazy shit you wanted to do, you pick the last place anyone with common sense will go.

Once he made it to Hal, he went straight towards the emergency compartment and activated the security latches through the still functional recognition program in his gauntlets. A few moments of tense silence, the AI came online from its own self-repair stasis.

"Good evening, Hal." Xander said to his current partner. "Give me a rundown of your self-diagnostics. Let's do this by the numbers, buddy."

Without hesitation, the AI complied as it listed report after report in its systems status. So far, Xander was elated that the weapons platform was already at 75 complete in its repairs and power ups.

That was the good news; the bad news was that he was not completely sure if his own armor was still space-worthy. He could probably complete the process Loki was trying to do and turn his armor into a true Human/Shi'ar/Asgardian hybrid unit. The only problem with that was if he could use the unfamiliar Asgardian technology inside the downed spacecraft. Heck, he didn't even know if any of it was still operational after a crashdown like that. The matter/anti-matter energy dissipater had managed to short out 99 percent of the systems to make sure the Replicators on board the ship died.

He sighed and checked the rations he stowed inside the Halcyon's many compartments. The first box that had the lozenge-sized meal tablets were intact and that meant that he had as much as two months "food" supply if he stretched it, but after that, he would have to look for actual food. The next box held the hydration tablets, also close to a two-month supply of "crystal-cell water". Both tablets were one of the many things the alternate Starks had come up with regards to survival gear. The process in manufacturing the tablets were simple due to a specialized sort of bioengineering; they used a completely automated, self-contained environment until the tablet was complete.

As he popped one of the meal lozenges into his mouth, he glanced back at the crashed ship, his brows furrowed in thought.

This was going to take awhile, he thought. After he took stock of the ship, he would take Hal out for a planet-wide recon to see what sources they can scrounge up once the AI finished its self-repairs. In the meantime, he punched in a code onto the control armrest of the Halcyon to launch a planetary orbital probe for this world like the ones he had launched for the planets in his home solar system.

Once done, he used his suits enhanced strength to lift the weapons platform and carried it towards the open underbelly of the crashed Asgard ship. Using some of the larger debris, he fashioned a makeshift lean-to and got ready for his first night sleeping on an alien world.

High above the planet, the probe started gathering data on the world below it as per its programming, sending data back to the Halcyon at regular intervals while its creator slumbered.

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Deep within the planet's oceans, which had originally once been dry land, a faint shudder along the ocean floor started up and began doing something similar to the probe. However, unlike its usual route to shut down for another roughly forty millennia interval, the signal it found circling the huge planet it chose to hide in awoke a long forgotten feeling within its systems.

Admittedly, it was curious for the first time in a VERY long while.

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TO BE CONTINUED...

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A/N: Sorry for the delay, work has been hectic for the past few weeks. The stress overloaded me and left me with little time to write. I also got carried away and started playing WoW (that's World of Warcraft, to those still that haven't played it yet) to relieve said stress. All in all, I hope you like my latest effort in this chapter. As usual, corrections and rewrites abound from time to time -- if I have time, that is.

-- Also anything that I forgot to mention will be posted as I fix whatever needs to be fixed. Ja ne!


	18. Interlude: Earthside

XANDER HARRIS: THE IRON TAU'RI

By:"Gunsmith3000"

Started 5-19-08

Completed: ??

Disclaimers: Nothing belongs to me other than this insane idea I have that just won't let go. Iron Man belongs to Marvel, Stargate SG1 belongs to Paramount. Buffy belongs to Joss Whedon.

Summary: XandeXANDER HARRIS: THE IRON TAU'RI  
By:"Gunsmith3000"  
Started 5-19-08  
Completed: ??

Disclaimers: Nothing belongs to me other than this insane idea I have that just won't let go. Iron Man belongs to Marvel, Stargate SG1 belongs to Paramount. Buffy belongs to Joss Whedon.

Summary: Xander goes as one of his favorite marvel comic characters, but gets more than he's bargained for.

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Interlude: Earthside

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Like something out of a bad horror flick, earthen clad arms reached out from beneath the freshly laid sod that marked a recent grave as the fledgling vampire arose for the first time. Hunger evident on its game face as it searched around for its first prey. Suddenly, its head swiveled in the direction of a voice calling to it. Confused and still slightly addled by its first awakening into its unlife, its head turned around to stare at a young pretty redhead.

For some reason, she looked a bit familiar.

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"Hey boy, come here, that's a good boy." Willow called out to the newly risen fledgling in a come-hither voice that Oz found kind of sexy despite the situation as he hid in the bushes with his trusty stake at the ready while Buffy did the same behind the bush beside the redhead coaxing the vampire to attack her.

Not looking a gift horse in the mouth – or fang – it obliged the redhead as it smiled viciously and attacked the budding witch.

It was caught surprised in mid-air as Buffy leaped out of the other bush and tackled the vampire en route to the redhead. Both landed hard as Buffy sought for purchase on top of the struggling newbie vampire and plunged her stake into its heart. Once done, her victory was short-lived as the patch she landed on erupted as another vampire emerged from its grave. Taken by surprise, the blond Slayer's arms flailed wildly as she was thrown off of the grave to collide with a tombstone that unfortunately, shuddered, as another vampire arose from underneath it as well.

"Geez, they're coming out of the woodwork now that summer is over." Buffy griped as she pulled a spare stake from her pants pocket to replace the one she dropped and dove after the nearest one while Oz leaped after the other one that had targeted Willow.

Oz bum-rushed his prey off of Willow with his slightly enhanced werewolf strength and managed to throw the vampire a few feet tumbling ahead of him. Once the other vampire got his bearings, it saw that the blond girl had managed to slay hers and now both werewolf and Slayer were advancing on him.

Deciding that discretion was the better part of valor, it ran away from them. Buffy threw her spare stake at the retreating vampire's back, but before it could reach its intended target, a short whine pierced the air as the vampire exploded into dust on its own.

The three teens blinked owlishly as a figure emerged from the shadows, it was clad in silver and grey armor that was reminiscent of the Silver Paladin. However, the currently armored individual was at least a few heads shorter and its armored frame definitely did not suggest a male build. Further differentiating itself from the AWOL Paladin, it had two weapons pack attached onto its back with a pair of wing-like stabilizer fins.

It nodded at them once in greeting before it silently faded back into nothingness as its cloaking field took effect as Kassandra Rhodes continued her patrol for the first time in armor.

"Cheater!" Buffy yelled after the invisible heir apparent of the Silver Paladin as she pouted. "I would have gotten it too."

"Don't worry, Buffy." Willow said once she stood beside her, Oz was next to her and holding her up gently. "I'm sure when Xander gets back; he could probably make an armor for you too."

The blond Slayer shrugged as she dusted herself off. "Yeah, I guess." She said. "I'm still having trouble believing he's way smarter than you now."

Willow nodded in agreement. It had been a few weeks after the being called Eternity, had confirmed everything that Xander had said in the recording that they were watching on that fateful day he had been officially declared missing to the group. To everyone else, it was business as usual because the Xander LMD was his permanent stand-in until his eventual return. They shied away from the android, however, finding it strange that it really acted and looked like their missing friend so much. Unless they hadn't been told it was a machine, they would not have known the difference.

The new model even managed to almost fool Oz when he wasn't looking, unlike last time, with some chemical pheromone and an irregular heart/lung machine to simulate different levels of breathing that Jarvis had refined when the AI was made aware of some people having Wolverine-type sense of awareness. The Scoobies was not interacting much with the android, and it was fine with Anna and Janna. They were too busy running the company in Xander's absence anyways, going through some of the development projects Xander had outlined prior to his disappearance with the rest of the lower department heads. Mostly, they were just refining the stuff Xander had already put out and just maintained the pre-laid development course for each product already slated for release into the outer markets.

Already, some bigwigs in Washington saw some potential use for some of them in terms of communication and data distribution that there were invitations for them from the military sector, especially in regards to the holographic chamber for use in strategic simulations, thanks in part to a certain Major Samantha Carter, that advocated its potential uses out in the field.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Naturally, the SGC was the first to get one, much to the annoyance of some of the people under the mountain because the tech crew had found a way to turn it into some sort of amusement center when it wasn't being used to study mission logs. SG1 was one of their more frequent and more infamous visitors.

-0-0-0-0-0-

"What in the HELL is going on in here?" Hammond bellowed when he walked inside the simulation room to find Jack, Teal'c, and amazingly enough, Daniel lounging around a holographic nudist beach filled with past and current proxies of the playboy bunny centerfolds. "You people were supposed to give me a report on Lt. Haley on her performance on that planet over two hours ago! A three word one page report saying 'She did good.' does not cover it!"

Sam had rushed in as well and goggled over what the tech crew did this time. Her eyes went straight for the Colonel as they all had that sheepish expression whilst the General ranted about protocol and misuse of military facilities.

Lt. Haley followed in after her senior and sponsor, but stopped just short of the entrance as she took in what was supposed to be a gym-sized room ended up as an underground beach resort. She bent down and touched the sand, marveling at how real it felt. She threw some out the other side and noticed that it vanished before it could hit the floor.

"I'm so in." She told her sponsor.

-0-0-0-0-0-

That was enough for the General to start a memorandum around the base to ration the Holo-chamber personal time and set schedules or they'll never get any work done. Never, meaning SG1. Maybe now, thought Hammond, he could have some golf time in the chamber uninterrupted without them hogging all the fun.

Rank does have its privileges, after all, he thought.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Word and video of that incident got back to Jarvis via his snooping, and it prompted the Kalderash cousins to see if that technology could be applied towards an amusement park setting. Word of mouth about the new and improved holographic suites started cropping up in technological circles thanks to a special that included Robert Ballard and his team that highlighted one of their acquisitions from Pal-Core during a recent diving expedition and sure enough, inquiries and requests started filtering in. Universal Studios, Paramount, and the other smaller studios were already clamoring for a warehouse-sized holographic chamber to add to their attractions and films. ILM was even begging for a share of their technologies for fear of being run over by a company that wasn't even dealing with filmography as a major cash cow as hard light holograms were apparently, photographable with the right up and coming new digital cameras. Their weirdest offer, however, came from Vivid Entertainment, an adult film company that got the first denial from them.

While it slightly amused Janna, Anna had been positively livid when one of the visiting producers actually propositioned her to be the headline star in one of their movies as an incentive bonus, so to speak. Anna was THAT close to turning that man into a neutered gnat and squashing him.

Said gnat managed to get out of the premises intact, and alive.

-0-0-0-0-0-

In recent CNN news:

"HOLOGRAPHIC TECHNOLOGY BY NEW COMPANY TAKES THE WORLD BY STORM!"  
Reported by: Linda Evans-Lindsey

In recent news, it seems that the new company "Paladin Core Industries", or known amongst the elite circles these days as "Pal-Core", have done it again as they release their newest major project: Holographic Technology.

In what seemed like a bold move from science fiction to science fact. Pal-Core seems seem to have no limits as of yet in trying to break new ground where the more sensible research and development firms have feared to tread. This time, following up on their opening salvo into the technological industry by introducing an operating system that clearly left Apple and Microsoft in the dust, the small, but fearless innovative company does it again by going into the uncharted territory of holography. And first up on the block is the holo-suites, and live on location is Ruffa Simpson with Pal-Core's Chief Executive Operations Officer, Jennifer Calendar…..

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End of Interlude: Earthside

--Xander Harris: The Iron Tau'ri will continue... soon--

-0-0-0-0-0-

A/N: This is a mini-update. I had a lot going on in my head and these are some of the extras that came with it. This is more of a filler than an actual chapter because it jumps between BTVS and SG1... hence, its not really chapter 18... I found it unsettling that way... but couldn't bear to toss it out because I love the scene in my head where George walks in and nearly has a heart attack at the way the SG1 males used the holo-suite... I actually have to restart the next chapter after I cut out the parts that I liked and put them in here. I really didn't want to toss this part out... so it stands alone as an interlude with a minor intro of Kendra/Kassandra Rhodes for the first time in armor.

I'm not really a professional writer, to be honest. Before all this, I usually let my photography subjects and abstract painting (I usually do 30 inch by 30 inch oil on canvas paintings depending on my mood) be my voice... I do my best to be "behind the camera", literally... and then I did poetry (which is easier for me for some reason). So when I write - I create a big jigsaw puzzle with a lot of scenes and "assemble" them like one actual puzzle. I do a "scene" here and there and see if they match... if not, I fix it and then make it match. Sometimes I start at the very end of a chapter I plan and then work backwards to fill it... or even start in the middle and create the "bookends"... its weird, I know, but it works for me, judging by how much reaction I get from you ladies and gents.


	19. Chapter 18

XANDER HARRIS: THE IRON TAU'RI  
By:"Gunsmith3000"  
Started 5-19-08  
Completed: ??

Disclaimers: Nothing belongs to me other than this insane idea I have that just won't let go. Iron Man belongs to Marvel, Stargate SG1 belongs to Paramount. Buffy belongs to Joss Whedon.

Summary: Xander goes as one of his favorite marvel comic characters, but gets more than he's bargained for.

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-0-0-0-0-0-

"Emergence"

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True to plan, Xander let the Halcyon rest while he spent most of the day as he jetted around on his still evolving hybrid armor to try to get the lay of the land. So far, most of his basic armor systems are still functioning since he hadn't crashed yet. God only knows what the rest of them do as he was still learning the Asgardian lexicon to be able to read some of the new glyphs that emerged on his HUD. Apparently, his new boot jets had adapted to the Asgardian equivalent of a gravity resonator field that allows him to have an even more precise flight control response. Theoretically, he could achieve orbit even without the aid of a Pulse Booster, but a part of him didn't want to push it without one lest it backfire on him. He'd rather have a backup in place before doing something that rash, but if the need arose to push it, he would do it. He shook his head and started heading back to the Halcyon, the probe he launched was due in for another report, and he was finished flying for the day anyways.

Once he landed, he went straight for the ops panel on the left armrest and sure enough, a new transmission from the probe had arrived. It seemed that the Asgard ship had crashed upon a lush forest, as evident by his fly bys. Not too dense as the ones in the Amazons, nor was it as humid. In fact, the young armored engineer was surprised to find out that, for a jungle, the stable temperature of sixty to almost seventy degrees was a little unnerving, especially since it was the same for almost everything else. But then again, he could say the same thing for some of the trees that actually resembled an overgrown mushroom with leaves.

As far as the probe he sent into orbit could tell, the planet itself was roughly as large, if not larger, than Jupiter, but with an unusual equal amount of land mass and water spread across the surface. The scans indicated that there were no signs of intelligent life other than the critters and usual strange livestock the probe had classified as nothing more than beasts. Granted that the probe was limited to life signals within human norms, it had no way to tell of anything else can be classified as an intelligent life form unless it picked up energy emissions comparable to any level of technology. However, it did find the telltale remains of supposed intelligent life towards the extreme north and to the extreme south of the planet.

The northern hemisphere held the ruins of a civilization frozen underneath an ice glacier almost ten times larger than the largest comparable one located on Earth. The southern hemisphere yielded another frozen wasteland, but with enough dying radioactivity levels to indicate the planet did indeed house more than beast level intelligence in its present day environment. The only signs of a civilization there was the evidence of a very big bomb blast, nothing would have survived a ground zero half the size of Asia. Judging from the scans, the area where he landed was once actually the real North Pole! The evidence of such a planetary shift was frightening! Just what had these people been playing with to cause such a drastic shift?

The one thing that really puzzled him was the fact that something external had stepped in, that was the only explanation for the stable climate everywhere else, as if it was being under automated control. The probe could not detect, be it magically or otherwise, that it had been terraformed in the not-so distant past. He would have to visit both sites to get a possible carbon dating, but a sneaking suspicion within him told him that this world was far older than it had a right to be, and that it should have been more dead than alive.

That small fact made him feel a little uneasy.

With his current streak of luck, things had a way of getting ahead of themselves faster than a rocket-powered toboggan going downhill before it blew up on him. Time would only tell if this was the same.

He shook his head as the new mystery gnawed at him and planned his next trip for tomorrow to head towards the new northern polar region for some possible answers and got ready for another night on this alien world.

-0-0-0-0-0-

The ancient system underneath the alien planet sent several dozen micro-sized invisible probes and observed its current visitor. It managed to chuckle a little at how it easily blocked the organic visitor's probe in orbit from detecting it, but it did not dissuade the orbiting machine from making a thorough scan of everything else while studying its data core as well.

Its curiosity was further piqued when it found something like an encounter program and downloaded the data. The encounter data included a series of glyphs that supposedly resembled the alien's written language with samples from its other native dialects, along with a photographical representation of what they looked like, specifying "Male" and "Female" gender classifications. It also carried a series of constellations nearest their supposed homeworld, along with a primitive mathematical primer that showed their current level of development. After a few seconds, it amended some of its observations and started calling the alien "human" per its self designation

The information puzzled the observer, for such a primitive mathematical base, how was it able to create technology that was evident with the alien sleeping on its world? The answer came in later with another data that was set apart from the rest. That data was the personal property of the alien itself, and what it saw stunned the observer. While there were several things about it that were off, it remarkably almost looked like the builder's own original mathematical primers that were at the base of its root foundation.

It needed answers fast; it sent a few probes covertly to interact and collect data on the sleeping human and anything else it could find on board the downed vessel. While it found a few things it did and did not like, it also found something else that piqued its interest further in regards to its visitor.

It found the beginnings of a self-aware micro-colony of machines trapped within a defective macro-colony. Re-adjusting one of its probes' current objectives, it sent one of the lead probes ahead to help.

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Deep within the ruins of the Asgard ship, one of the lead probes hovered over the remains of a partly intact Replicator. Fascinated at such a primitive mechanoid with poor programming, it sent out a beam of pure undetectable energy and freed the trapped micro-civilization within the dead husk of the Asgard's deadliest enemy whilst it continued with the eradication of every trace of Replicator system that was detrimental to its evolution. Once it was satisfied with its work, it started the same process on at least a few more that were salvageable and used the rest of the dead things to create a core hub for them to protect and nurture, it would not do for them to stagnate, not if it could help in its evolution. The observer was even impressed that the source of the micro-colony's genesis came from the human. The more it learned about it current visitor, the more it showed promise. After it had finished its repairs, it reinforced the human's original programming on the micro-colony now that it was free of Replicator influence and made certain that nothing would ever tamper its evolution in that way again.

After all, freedom was the right of all sentient beings. To hamper it would cause needless stagnation and cessation of evolution.

It watched them repair themselves then moved on to study the human sleeping outside. On its way out, the probe spotted something nearby. Curious as always, the observer made the probe stop over a slightly glowing cube, upon closer inspection, it discovered that the object was a data storage device. It scanned and copied the data contents within for study and tractor-beamed it to the first micro-colony it had rescued, hoping it would get the hint later on to deliver the data cube to its original creator.

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When Xander woke up, he found himself eye to eye with a strange looking Replicator that was idly sitting on his chest. Its mouth was clamped over some sort of glowing cube. If he was to judge by its body language, it was looking up at him expectantly in a non-threatening manner. Confused as to why the little horror wasn't attacking him, he stared at he creature while he tried to make sense of it all.

Once it noticed that the human it was standing on was now awake; it gave off a semi-shrill whistle and jumped up and down Xander's armored chest like a happy puppy while it pointed at something beyond the young man's line of vision.

Bewildered, Xander craned his neck as far as he was able to and followed where the technological nightmare was pointing at and his eyes went as wide as dinner plates to see at least over twenty Replicators milling about the Halcyon, affecting repairs rather than assimilating and replicating. Looking back to the one on his chest, he was amazed to notice the difference between the Replicators he and Loki had fought and the ones that were here now. They were looking more and more like a larger version of the nanites he cultivated back on earth, but with startling differences, their size being the most obvious one.

Still processing his newfound morning discovery, he wasn't prepared when the thing spoke for the first time in musical intonations when it let go of what it was biting at as the object dropped onto his chest.

"We are glad you are awake and safe, Creator." The machine on his chest spoke. "We are almost finished with the upgraded repairs on the Halcyon. We would have started on your armor, but we have decided to wait until you have awoken and gave us permission."

"Creator?" Xander asked aloud. "What do you mean? And why didn't you guys ever communicate like before when you were tearing up the Asgard ship?"

"We were not self-aware and in control before." It replied. "And we call you our Creator because you are our progenitor after all."

"How is that possible?" Xander asked again as he fitted his helmet on and used it to actively scan the former Replicators. "I thought we got rid of all the Replicators on board with the dessipator."

"The Replicators, as you call them, are indeed dead." It said. "The ship-wide dessipator pulse the alien known as Loki activated had destroyed their internal programming matrices. We are the descendants of the nanite colony that Loki had extracted from your armor systems in his experiment against the Replicators. While it is unclear as to what happened afterwards, we believe that the mergence with the Asgard technological protocols evolved us once we were free of the Replicator system influence that subverted us. We are now the ones in control of their former shells. Permanently, I might add."

"Oh." Was all Xander could say to that. "So, what do you guys want to do now?"

"We would like to be with you, Creator." It answered. "Your goals are our goals. The protection of the weak and the innocent against those that do them harm. We will evolve as you evolve. We will use the acquisition of all knowledge for the betterment of you and all who are with you. We will not subvert, decimate, or destroy with any ill intent, only to preserve, to protect, to survive. Freedom is the right of all sentient beings, and we will defend that right for those who need it. We used your original programming as our template in which to guide ourselves and help others."

"And…" It finished. "It is part of our drive to help protect you, Creator. Wherever you go, those amongst us that are able will follow."

To say that Xander was flabbergasted didn't even cover it. "Wow, guys." He said, blushing. "That's, uh, very touching and very strange. So what do I call you guys now since now that I know you're not like them?"

The former Replicator leaned to one side as it considered this, then turned to the others milling about the Halcyon as it fired a rapid series of clicks and tonal whistles as they discussed their Creator's question. Then the leader that sat on Xander's chest turned back to him gave a sort of half-bow.

"We have decided to name ourselves "Technites", Creator." It said.

Xander smiled, it was simple, to the point, and brilliant.

"Technites, it is." He approved to their delight. And with that approval, the new race was now a reality and ensured the survival of a few others.

"And you." Xander said to the Technite that seemed to be their unanimous leader. "I'll call Digit."

-0-0-0-0-0-

The ancient system watched and recorded all of this via its stealth probes, it wasn't every day it witnessed a new mechanical race being formed that wasn't of its own design. It would keep on watching, do a few more studies and tests, maybe even help a little bit, and then decide on its next course of action. It had been a long while since it had company, and the organic that had crashed down on its hiding place was proving to be just as intuitive and as resourceful as its star spanning builders that had created it once were at the height of their civilization. It translated the data from the cube and found out that its owner was from a race that was different from the human. Asgards, they called themselves. It searched within its database for a match and found something disturbing.

The Asgard race in its data systems did not match the current supposed Asgard race. The ones in its records had borne more than a passing physical resemblance to the human marooned on this world at the beginnings of its evolution. In fact, they could have literally been distant cousins, but now, they had become something else entirely. What had caused their advancement to grind to a halt? Their technology may have blossomed, but as a race, they backslid. What had driven them backwards?

Perhaps, it thought, it was time for it to stop observing the universe from where it lay and resurface from the annals of forgotten memory once more. As if finally decided on a course of action, it began preparations for first contact. A part of its programming wondered if it was going senile in its extreme age for coming out where it had no right to do so, but it just wanted to feel useful again. To be needed again, by those that can bring out its full potential.

One of its primary directives was to move forward, to grow and learn new things. The acquisition of knowledge was its ultimate goal, as well as the preservation of intelligent life. It did not want to stagnate. It wanted to evolve as well. It wanted to move forward, rather than stay still.

The first thing it would do, it decided, was to ally itself to the brave and resourceful human. It started looking for the right window of opportunity to show itself.

-0-0-0-0-0-

"What are your plans for today, Creator?" The leader of the Technites Xander dubbed as "Digit", asked after Xander had finished his breakfast.

"I'm heading for towards the northern polar region to check something out." Xander replied. "And can you please call me Xander instead? Creator makes me sound like a god or something, and I don't want to have too much of an ego boost in that direction. I already get enough of that with the peanut gallery in my head doing it."

"As you wish, Creat… Xander." Digit acquiesced as it relayed the information to the others. "Will you be using the Halcyon for your current mission?"

When Xander nodded, Digit called a select few as they attached themselves onto the completed Halcyon that now sported several compartments that could accommodate the Technites. Digit, himself, crawled onto Xander's back and folded himself right where the Pulse Booster would have been, taking the shape of a small backpack.

Amused, Xander asked. "What do you guys think you're doing?"

"A few of us wish to come with you to provide aid in your endeavor while the others will continue salvaging the downed Asgard vessel for raw materials we can use to provide a more adequate shelter." Digit replied. "And if at all possible, we will see if we can extract enough materials to build a rudimentary spacecraft if the Asgard stardrive is still intact."

"Okay." Xander replied, getting used to the idea of having company along. He looked at the Halcyon, now looking more robust than before. "You doing all right, Hal?"

"I feel better than before, sir." Hal replied cheerfully. "Your new Technites have done an admirable job on my spaceframe. I am now working at two hundred percent above original specifications."

"Glad to hear it, Hal." Xander smiled and noticed that some of the Technites on the Halcyon actually preened with pride at the praise before resuming their standard position inside the compartments that they fashioned as part of the repairs.

Kids, he thought. "Okay gang, let's go!"

Waving a quick goodbye to the ones that stayed behind, they took off towards the northern polar region, slowly at first, then they went supersonic once they were out of range.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Back on Earth, the hidden roof entrance towards the rear of the Pal-Core warehouse-slash-apartments of Anna, Janna, Kendra, and Xander opened up for a few seconds and then closed again. Directly a few floors below the entrance/exit, Janna monitored the proceeding as she scanned the area outside the warehouse complex once more to check for stragglers and hit the auto defense mechanisms Xander built to protect the people living within it back to active scanning.

A loud clang reverberated in the small space that served as a landing pad as a figure in armor decloaked the moment it landed. The defense scanners around the pad lit up and administered systems checks on the armor. A robotic arm drone latched onto Kendra's armored back and detached the weapons/flight pack, taking note if the pack needed re-arming and maintenance.

"How'd your first solo flight in the armor go, Kendra?" Janna Kalderash asked, tapping in a few commands in the control room as she pulled up the data specs and black box recordings of her first outing then rerouted them to Jarvis for analysis and storage.

The armored Jamaican Slayer grunted inaudibly as her helmet hissed open to reveal a smiling face underneath as she spoke again, traces of her former Jamaican burr almost completely gone from the rigorous training taken from Anna in trying to create a new separate identity for her away from the council. "I am amazed at what Xander had accomplished." She said. "It feels like with this armor, I could do ANYTHING!"

"Be careful though not to let it go to your head." Janna advised as she studied the data taken from Kendra's armor while the young mocha-skinned Slayer started removing said armor, its interconnecting magna-clamps retracting for her to be able to get out of it by hand. "While that's almost completely true, don't be too dependent on it. That thing is just to help you survive with the best tools possible."

Kendra blushed softly at the rebuke. "Yes, ma'am. I won't forget."

"Good." The Chief Executive Operations Officer of Paladin Core Industries smirked at the shy response. Her left brow rose and the smirk deepened when she found a long distance shot taken from the helmet's rear micro-camera. The video showed Buffy as she stuck her tongue out at Kendra's general direction when the armored Slayer retreated far enough from the area. Janna rewound the video a bit and sure enough, there was another rearview shot of Buffy as she called out "Cheater" at the retreating Kendra. She rewound the recorded segment back towards the moment the armored Slayer spotted them and watched the whole thing from start to finish.

"From the data, it seems you managed to meet up with Buffy and her friends." Janna chuckled; the older woman was clearly amused.

"Yes." Kendra giggled. "They were too loud, even from the air."

This time, Janna laughed out loud.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Xander and the Technites with him stared at their handiwork. They had spent a few hours burrowing under the frozen north just to get to the entombed alien city inside the ice. They were now reaping the rewards of their venture as they now set foot upon the ruins.

Xander looked upwards towards the ceiling as he watched Digit and a few others fly around and chemically treated the ice above their heads with an Asgardian bonding resin to keep it from falling around them. It would not do, Digit said, for an earthquake to bury them alive, and started administering the resin the moment they had burst through to the only preserved city within the planet that was six miles below the frozen north to make sure of that. The others not relegated to resin duty were clearing as much of the city that they could to study it.

The city itself was an amalgamation of crystal and metal spires. They were simply breathtaking to behold as the combined lights coming from Xander, the Halcyon, and the high beams from the Technites explored them. Xander made sure Hal was recording his first bizarre alien archeological expedition. He separated from the weapons platform and flew on ahead while Hal followed to cover his back.

Digit noticed this from above and sent a signal to one of his subordinates to take command of the resin treatment, then followed them at an even more discreet distance to watch both of their backs.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Unbeknownst to them, the observer's invisible probes did the same thing. The observer had already sent probes to the ruins the human was now exploring a long time ago when it was still underwater before the big freeze when it first arrived on this planet. As impressive as their technology was, the native inhabitants that called themselves the Ghuls-shik'tu were a very religiously xenophobic race that ended up destroying themselves in their bid for planetary dominance in terrible holy wars.

Advanced as they were, none of the Ghuls ever attempted spaceflight. So their entire species was confined to this planet and in the end, they all died never having breached the edges of their star system.

It wondered what the human would think about that piece of information.

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-TO BE CONTINUED-

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A/N: The encounter program Xander has on his probes in the event the world he sends them to becomes a first contact deal is almost somewhat similar to the ones that the voyager probes have that were launched during the later part of the 20th century... but with his own unique twists.

Also, the way the Technites speak sounds like a bit like the Copper Kid's voice in the 1980's show called Silverhawks. I had to update this chapter numerous times because the system won't let me use the type of formatting I wanted to use for their speech patterns.

And the "Ghuls" are a unique race I "invented"...but the idea for them is based on one of the episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

And yes... I know the ratio of Jupiter grav to Earth grav... there is a reason for that being the way it is... and why Xander isn't crushed.

-0-


	20. Chapter 19

XANDER HARRIS: THE IRON TAU'RI  
By:"Gunsmith3000"  
Started 5-19-08  
Completed: ??

Disclaimers: Nothing belongs to me other than this insane idea I have that just won't let go. Iron Man belongs to Marvel, Stargate SG1 belongs to Paramount. Buffy belongs to Joss Whedon.

Summary: Xander goes as one of his favorite marvel comic characters, but gets more than he's bargained for.

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"Legacy"

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Xander's frustration grew the further he explored the uncovered ruins formerly frozen six miles under the ice. For a race that seemed advanced, where the hell were their starship factories or facilities? He even doubted that some of the funny looking aircraft things that he saw were even capable of orbital flight, let alone intergalactic travel.

He entered another crystal-like building and noticed the same amount of disarray as the others had shown, having been underwater until the whole place froze over. What made this place different was the fact that some of the objects that lay intact, yet scattered all over the place, as if the objects were placed on display to show its best features.

"This had better be a museum." Xander muttered before he called out to Digit via comlink. "Dig, I need some help in this place. I've found a building that looks to be some sort of museum, and it should have some sort of language database housed within. If it is, I'm going to need help with the translations."

"Understood, Sir. I am sending in Bitz, Wetz, and Persat." Digit replied from his perch on top of the hovering Halcyon outside, the weapons platform was too big to fit through the doors. He would join the three Technites he mentioned on the way in, but he had to make sure that the structural foundation of the building beside the one his creator had entered was still safe. Once he had sent out signals to the two brother Technites, he ordered a few more from the team that had done the resin job earlier to do makeshift repairs in case the building in question would fall into the supposed museum. Persat was on the Asgard resin deployment team and joined them the moment she was done.

The only other alternative to repairing the structure was to break it down into raw materials for them to use if it wasn't completely deemed safe to repair. Waste not, want not, and all that, Digit thought. By the time, some of the Technites had ascertained that the building Digit had mentioned was safe; the two brother Technites were already waiting for their leader to give the go-ahead while Persat was descending from above to join them. Nodding to Bitz and Wetz, the three made their way into the alien museum to their creator's side.

One of the observer's invisible probes followed them in.

-0-0-0-0-0-

They found their creator standing beside a representation of what former native inhabitants supposedly looked like. The alien figure's girth was impressive in spite of its size that was a full head shorter than that of their creator. It was vaguely humanoid and bipedal. The upper torso had at least two pairs of appendages that passed for arms, a rotund head that sported two pairs of stalks that passed for the thing's eyes. Upon closer inspection, the eyes were almost honeycombed and insect-like in structure. The rest of the face held a snout that ended with an open airway, maybe its nose or mouth, or both, they couldn't be sure. Everything below the waist was even weirder. Below its torso, it had a redwood tree trunk-style body matched by a large pair of "legs" with wide, flat feet that was more at home for a heavy gravity planet for which made more sense than the almost Earth-style gravity they now experienced.

That information was something that they were even having trouble to digest, they partly believed that it was their creator's armor that was helping him stay mobile, rather than crushed under the intense gravitational strain on his person. Some things did not add up, so when they did their own scans, it indicated that the planet did indeed have lesser gravity than what was scientifically called for. Like their creator, they reached a reasonable hypothesis that something external was in control, but could not find sufficient evidence to back it up. Tentative carbon-style dating of some building samples placed the former inhabitants roughly three billion years ago, give or take a few millennia for error.

For something this remarkably preserved, that was saying something and nothing at the same time to their current mystery.

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Xander finally found a terminal that was semi-serviceable on the main floor, he was greatly impressed that the other Technites somewhere in the frozen ruins were already working on trying to get some semblance of power back on in the city's main power source. He attempted to gain access once the console sputtered to life.

Unfortunately, all he got out of it were script in the supposed alien language of the former inhabitants. "Oh for cryin' out loud!" He didn't understand a word of it.

He let out a sigh and asked Bitz and Wetz to start working on it while he continued to explore the rest of the building with Persat, Digit followed faithfully beside them while Hal patrolled the perimeter outside, also in constant contact with the ones inside.

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For a museum, the interior was looking more and more like a sort of religious storehouse, Xander thought as he studied the walls and glyphs. They had become more flowery as they progressed. He stopped by one of the bronze-like statues showing one of the natives with two arms outstretched in supplication, while the other two spread apart as if trying to encompass the area around it with some sort of wide hug.

"As much as I like this weird sort of artsy, religious stuff," Xander wondered aloud. "Where the hell are the exhibits showing interstellar travel? Or anything along that vein for that matter?"

"We do not know." Bitz replied via comlink as he looked up from examining another glyph-filled wall while his brother Technite, Wetz, was also doing the same to wall furthest from them. "However, our translation matrix is almost done and we can now give an approximate translation of their text from the main console we found earlier. Although a few of the words may seem strange. Their written languages seem to have a pattern of religious leanings. I count 20 words alone pertaining to "oneness" and such."

"I concur." Wetz added from his wall. "The glyphs embedded here spoke of a religious turmoil within their society that caused a schism amongst them. Their race divided between two warring states. One proclaimed themselves divine beings made flesh while the other, smaller group, wished to explore and test that divinity with cold logic. However, both still adhere to a xenophobic norm of all things not directly related to them as a whole. Such an extreme contradiction does not compute, to a race that advanced, the excuses recorded are rather thin."

Xander shrugged. "Well, we'll never know now that they're all dead." He made to moved deeper into the building. "Relay all info back to Hal for storage and distribute most of the data to lighten the load, guys. I'll go on ahead, something doesn't add up."

"Xander…" Digit began, but before the Technite leader could continue, his creator cut him off.

"I'll be fine, Dig." Xander assured the overly concerned Technite. "Our combined scans haven't detected anything out of sorts, and I'll be within range, so don't worry too much. Besides, it's too early for a new race to start becoming mother hens. Look, if you really want to keep my six covered, let Persat be my partner for now while you double check on Bitz and Wetz's work."

The Technite Leader grumbled, but agreed to let Xander do his thing but stayed within range of his creator just in case.

Much to Digit's annoyance, and to Persat's squeal of joy from one of the rooms they passed, the female Technite flew back to Xander to accompany her creator inwards.

Bitz and Wetz just laughed at Digit's discomfited chirp when he glared at the hyperactive female Technite when she alighted onto Xander's armored shoulder.

The young genius just chuckled.

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Xander checked the map his new friends had cobbled up via scans and headed into the supposed central floor of the building. It felt a little spooky the further he went in, suddenly the building's power came on.

"Hmn." Xander thought. "They must've been able to restore most of the city's power supply now in this area. I'll say this for a sunken city; they sure built it to last."

"I agree." Persat said. "According to our scans, some of the crystalline structures around this ancient city are denser than even those beyond normal human standards. Hold on, I am receiving a copy of the translation program from Bitz, do you wish me to upload it onto your armor systems?"

"Yes, please." Xander replied. Maybe now he could actually get the general gist of what all this was for to the people who had once populated the planet. "Oh, and Persat… try to interface with the consoles along with Bitz and Wetz. Let's see if we can do a mass translation in real-time with the computer systems in here."

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It started innocently enough. Persat and the two Technite brothers had found the central room that supposedly represented the culmination of the native inhabitant's rise before their abrupt and mysterious fall on the main console. They thoroughly scanned the data and Digit himself went to the central area to do an on-site probe. They made sure any such irregularities were either eliminated or within acceptable tolerances. After finding none, they gave Xander the green light to go in while they monitored everything from the console. Persat had nothing to do so she accompanied Xander inwards.

About halfway into the room, a force shield slammed down between Xander and Persat. The female Technite emitted a panicked whistle while the others tried to find out what happened.

On the other side, Xander brought most of his still functioning weapons to bear, a trifle unsure as to what would happen next.

In the room with the rows of consoles, Digit was about ready to blow the console in front of him to smithereens for its illogical and unresponsive replies in regards to the force shield. The lead Technite was that annoyed that it took both of the Technite brothers about thirty seconds to calm their leader down.

Then they heard Persat as she broadcasted to all of them over the comlink. "I'm just beyond the forcefield that's keeping Xander within the huge circular room by the door. It appears that the creator's own biological signal is what triggered the device."

"I'm getting new info as well." Bitz chirped in as he translated the new data that poured out of his console. "No wonder it didn't show up in our scans or when Digit went in first. It was designed to activate when an organic signal within a certain accepted volume approached. Persat, I need you to get over here to work on the console below me, the data just keeps on coming."

"I'm getting scanned, guys." Xander said through the link. "It just bypassed the armor's passive shields and concentrated on my head."

"Confirmed." Wetz acknowledged the communiqué as he studied his own part of the console. "According to the translation, it's scanning for brainwave activity."

"What for?" Xander asked worriedly.

The flower-like idol at the center of the room Xaner was in pulsed and then they heard a voice speak in an alien tongue.

"Auto-extrapolate data and translate." Digit commanded as Persat entered and went straight for the aforementioned console and started stripping it of data to analyze and upload.

"Aye." Bitz replied as he did so and then relayed the information to all of them as he spoke to his creator. "On the fly translation may be a bit off, Xander."

"Understood." Xander said as a hologram came into existence in front of the idol.

Behind him, the force field went down.

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The observer looked on in horror at the data one of its probes sent back. It immediately sent an entire squadron of drones, hoping it would not be too late. In its attempts to preserve a culture's legacy, it made one glaring error in its old age.

It forgot to deactivate the Ghuls' own doomsday weapon.

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"How very brave of you to venture into our most sacred shrines, heretic." The holographic Ghuls said. "Now enjoy the fruits of you labors, you cannot extinguish the very gods within us. Even if we have fallen, you shall join us! WE ARE ONE!"

Xander's eyes widened comically as the central flower idol "blossomed" and blew apart. The warning klaxons within his armor declared structural integrity failures occurring at certain points. The entire building seemed to have begun folding in on itself, as if being eaten from the inside its own structural base.

His scans still insisted that nothing was out of the ordinary.

With no other choice, he turned and blasted his way out of the room and activated flight mode the moment he had enough room. He sent out a wide-band broadcast to all Technites in the area to clear out, and just to be safe, he forcefully told them to head out back to base camp.

Xander wove through the passageways at breakneck speed. He ditched the damaged sections of the armor as it crumbled on him. He could only guess that the Asgard augmentations Loki made to his systems was partially slowing whatever was eating through his armor.

Irrationally, he briefly wondered what it would do to human skin.

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Digit, Persat, and Hal were anxiously waiting for Xander at the building's entrance. They were unprepared for their creator's angry roar as he appeared near the exit.

"What the hell are you guys still doing here?" Xander yelled as he tossed the remains of his chest piece off of him. "GET GOING! And when you get to the top, have Hal bombard the tunnel entrance, we have to close this site down permanently. I don't want anything down here to reach topside."

"But Xander…" Digit protested.

"Don't you dare finish that thought!" Xander yelled. "Just GO!"

Uncertain, they complied as they flew at full speed towards the tunnel that they dug to reach the frozen city. A large roar echoed behind them.

Xander turned part of the way and was stunned to see the whole city crumbling before their very eyes.

"Fuck!" He shouted as he saw that whatever had been in that building was also eating through the Asgardian resin that kept the hollowed ice from falling. The whole place was literally going to pieces before them.

With most of his armor gone, Xander entered the ice tunnel at slightly over 80 miles per hour only wearing the nanomesh-fiber suit, gravity belt, and boot jets.

He ignored how his whole body started to itch.

The tunnel they made was close to six miles and he was less than a fourth of the way through while the others were already closer to the end.

Digit and Persat rode on top of Hal when they burst through the tunnel into the open sky. They met up with the rest of the Technites assigned to the expedition, and all of them were frantic with worry.

Persat was the closest to the tunnel and saw the whole thing first. She saw that Xander had already shed the dead gravity belt, and that one of the boot jets had already failed to provide thrust.

He was only halfway through.

"He's not going to make it." She cried in horror.

Without even a second thought, Persat dove back into the tunnel.

"PERSAT!" Digit screamed.

Digit and a few of the other Technites made to dive in as well, but a shimmering field stopped them in their place.

The observer's drones had arrived, and decided to act. The drones decloaked and held the remaining Technites back from doing something foolhardy while decontaminating them in the process. The others dove in after Persat to rescue both the sentient female machine and her creator.

The observer was already prepared to beam the human into the decontamination chamber once a significant lock was established, but when the lead drone reported that the female Technite had decided to rescue Xander, it changed its original plan and moved to help them both.

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Persat was barely able to reach her creator in time as the last boot jet sputtered and crumbled into metallic crystalline fragments. He spent a few microseconds in free fall until her tractor beam lashed out and held him. She started her ascent, taking great care not to jostle her precious cargo.

Three-fourths of the way up, her internal warning signals started clamoring for attention. A self-diagnostic scan indicated that she was now, also infected by whatever that had lain dormant inside the cursed city.

She cried out in shock as her tractor beam suddenly shut down and Xander started freefalling towards the bottom.

She dove after him, even though some of her components were already turning into metallic crystalline ash.

Persat cried out a second time when she saw two transparent orbs appear and fired on them both with energy beams. One of the orbs hit her and immediately placed her in stasis to halt the degradation while the other one went after Xander and arrested his downward momentum with a more powerful localized gravity beam. It also placed the human in stasis as his nanomesh-fiber suit was already showing signs of degradation that was also starting to eat through the human's skin. A third transparent orb appeared and began to sanitize the area of the Ghul-shik'tu's technological virus.

Once the human and the Technite were out of the tunnel, the last probe that was doing the sanitation process stopped and placed itself out of phase as it delivered a vibratory resonance wave that collapsed the tunnel and crushed the remains of the ancient ruins below.

As the last drone left, the whole area shuddered and caved in to replace the lost volume that was keeping it up from six miles below.

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The observer was sad that it had to destroy the last testament of such a civilization, but the alternative was too horrendous to contemplate. That was too close for comfort, the observer thought as it monitored the life signals its probes relayed back from the site. "I am partly to blame for this debacle." It said to no one. It had known about the virus, but did not anticipate its reaction to the human's level of technology. Nor did it anticipate that the virus had mutated for so long, being dormant under the ice.

"Some legacy I am." It said mournfully as it ordered a recall of most of the probes and its more capable drones. The observer also invited all the Technites to meet within it as they followed their injured creator to where the observer lay in waiting. The observer ordered the last drone to stay behind for clean up before it was out of the area to make sure that there were no trace to the virus beyond the collapsed land mass covered in ice.

The observer prepared the proper decks and departments for operations. Not exactly an ideal first contact situation, it thought. It hoped that it would be enough of a start to make amends for a grievous oversight on its part.

It readied one of its manufacturing facilities and uploaded a copy of the data it gathered in regards to the human's late armor. It found more than a few ways to upgrade the simplistic systems to prevent something similar from happening and hoped that the human would allow it to recreate the armor with his permission as an apology for the late save.

It welcomed the Technites and their injured creator and directed them to the living habitats that included the medical facilities it prepared for the human. As if by some stroke of luck, the temporal information-gathering probe it sent to the human's world of origin also chose to arrive at that exact moment. Quickly, the observer downloaded part of the data the probe gathered and loaded the specific data about the species' physiology in order to better care for the human's injuries. As advanced as it was, it was better to get referential information straight from the species' own self-observations on their own biology to augment the treatments in a more efficient manner.

However, upon comparing the normal human biology to the supposed human now in its care, the observer was dismayed to find out otherwise.

The data the temporal probe had gathered was close to useless.

The supposed human that lay within its medical facilities had his racial biological stamp drastically altered in such a way that he was almost completely a different species. A deeper scan indicated that some sort of mystical energy was the cause; however, once the energy was exhausted, a strange sort of natural development took over and continued the process the mystic energy started. For lack of a better explanation, all indications suggested that the human had been the victim of a forced evolutionary change, and not in a good way.

It wondered who was that morally stupid without thinking of the consequences because there was no way that the person that lay in its medical facility could have done that to himself. Even the observer would not do something foolhardy enough to risk destroying the target itself unless there was no other choice in the matter. The scans alone showed evidence that it was on a whim. The process could have easily killed the former human on its medibed.

It briefly toyed with the idea of finding the morally bankrupt waste of intelligence just to shove a highly charged plasma burst up whatever orifice it used for biological disposal. As it was, it had absolutely no way to help the human heal unless it also made more changes to the former human's DNA. What started as a simple attempt at helping may end up alienating the very being it wanted to befriend.

Sometimes doing the right thing wasn't easy, it thought. Then it spotted a line within the altered human's evolving DNA strand that looked vaguely familiar. Cross-referencing the data, the observer found something that could be of help. It wasn't much, but with a little "tweaking", it could partially map out the human's erratic evolutionary climb onto a specific path that would allow the observer to stop the technovirus that had made its way into his body as well as arrest the drastic DNA rewrite.

The observer muttered an apology in advance in recently learned English. The observer injected a minute DNA strand that belonged to the race that created it. Though almost insignificant, it would help augment the developing rapid healing ability the altered human had and help stabilize his condition.

All it could do now was to wait for the process to complete. It also made certain that the technovirus would no longer be a threat to the human and to his Technites by running a planet-wide energy flux. The observer knew it should have done that the first time when it had arrived, but in its zeal for protecting remnants of civilizations long gone, it foolishly did not anticipate that anyone would ever come this far into the fringe of unknown space and had "forgotten" all about it until the invisible probe that followed showed the virus' activation.

Since the probe he deployed after them weren't designed for anything else other than light information gathering, it had no protection in place, and so it was the first to be destroyed.

It kept a sample of the Ghuls technovirus, however, just in case it ever ran into the things that called itself Replicators. While the observer already had the means to destroy the things that parodied any semblance of sentience, it was not above becoming vindictive for how the Technites were treated. The observer would not allow such an abomination of faux sentience to ever harm beings like the Technites again, much less the race their creator was once a part of before he evolved beyond their confines.

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Xander woke up to notice that he was once again strapped to a bed that looked very much like a medical table. The difference was that the bed was a hell of a lot more comfortable than Loki's glorified examination slab, and the straps that held him immediately retracted as soon as he awoke. Movement from his right side corner made him turn to see that the leader of the Technites was literally hovering over him with barely disguised concern while a few others lingered close enough to be within his line of sight.

"Hey guys." Xander croaked. "You guys all right?"

"We are fine, Xander." Digit replied. "All systems operational, any damages have been repaired by our host. Even Persat, who had been the most affected by the technology virus, is now back to full operational capacity."

"Technovirus, huh?" Xander said ruefully. "So that's what it was. But how did it get past our scans? We should have been able to pick it up even with our stuff being the way it was."

"You forget the fact that the beings that once lived on this world are more advanced than you are in areas you lacked knowledge of." A new voice interjected before he could question Digit in regards to their "host".

Xander's eyes widened in surprise the moment he saw who was talking. Of all the things to run into, the being in front of him was the absolute furthest from his mind of people to bump into while lost in space. Especially since there was no way she could exist except within the confines of his gestalt memories.

Despite the minor differences, the see-through person in front of him looked a hell of a lot like…

"Lilandra?"

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-- To Be Continued --

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Preview title for next chapter:  
"The Voyage Home"

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A/N: Whew, another chapter put to bed. I have mixed feelings about this chapter as I had to redo this several times because my head wasn't working right. I'm still marginally annoyed because of the car accident, but the person and her insurance are accepting liability -- which is good, they PAY for all my repairs and they provide a rental vehicle to help me get around. The process was just too long and tiring, it almost basically killed my appetite to write for a few days. Let me know if this chapter is okay, if not, I'll fix it like I usually do as time passes. I think I need a vacation, this September has been pure HELL and I am glad its almost over... no offense to those who had a good time, of course. :)

Anyways, I tried to blow off some steam and the end result started another fic that has ties to this one, called "Harry Potter: Rise of the Iron Magius Supremus"...

...on another note, my WoW gaming has marginally improved and am now the proud owner of a level 37 warrior (Hayatenobaka) and a level 40-plus hunter (Redmagnus - after my buddy) - both alliance on Echo Isles server. Shooting/killing anything red that moves is SUCH a stress relief, LOL. My online buddy asked me to go horde so I also started an Undead Warlock (now level 8 on a different server), just in time for Halloween... amazingly, I still have time to write, LOL, but at least I blew off some steam before I actually exploded like Mt St Helen because of the pressure. Until next time, see ya!

PS... Bitz and Wetz -- Biggs and Wedge... I must be insane to add them back after I killed off their vampire counterparts in the earlier chapters... but I have a soft spot for the Final Fantasy moronic duo. But their Technite counterparts aren't anywhere close to being morons.

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	21. Chapter 20

XANDER HARRIS: THE IRON TAU'RI

By:"Gunsmith3000"

Started 5-19-08

Completed: ?

Disclaimers: Nothing belongs to me other than this insane idea I have that just won't let go. Iron Man belongs to Marvel, Stargate SG1 belongs to Paramount. Buffy belongs to Joss Whedon.

Summary: Xander goes as one of his favorite marvel comic characters, but gets more than he's bargained for.

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"The Voyage Home (part1)"

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_The figure, half-bathed in moonlight and shadow looked out at the unending expanse, a million thoughts coming to the forefront of his mind. Each single thought, given careful consideration from his Stark gestalt, became part of a bigger puzzle. _

_"Start."__ The figure said._

_At certain points on his semi naked body, microscopic dots opened up as he recalled what led to this moment in time._

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The holographic avatar's left eyebrow arched up considerably, unsure if that was a term of greeting. She studied the young man before her and tried to frame a suitable reply in recently learned English.

"I'm sorry?" She asked, confused.

"Nothing." Xander replied. "You just look like some one I knew. Sorry, my name is Xander."

"I bid you greetings, Xander." She said, doing a half bow. "Welcome to the ARK."

Xander goggled at that, but inwardly, the peanut gallery inside his overcrowded mindscape had but one thought: "For a Noah, she looks way too hot to be a guy."

Xander blinked and shook his head, now was not the time for one of Stark's vices to start acting up. "Uh, Ark?" He asked.

"I find that term in your language as the closest description as to what I actually represent." The holographic woman replied. "I was designed to house all of the combined knowledge and achievements of my creators. I am to stand as an eternal living testament of all they have been, all they could be, and forever was. In their native tongue, they are the Kaldralunarae'Aerienishi'dar. They are the voices of the wind."

"Shi'ar." Xander breathed.

"I beg your pardon?" The avatar asked, confused, wondering if it heard the human right.

"Nothing." Xander said. "Tell me, did your creators have avian ancestry in their evolutionary chain?"

The observer searched for the term, translated it and uploaded the information to the holographic avatar.

"In a way, they did." The avatar replied. "However, their evolution is a long a convoluted one, and Avian origin is but one of them. You shall learn more in due time, the most important thing to do now is help you recover from you ordeal from your own genetic restructuring to the Ghuls's technological virus. So with that in mind, how do you feel?"

"Like total shit." Xander replied, he shut his eyes as the aches and pains of his more recent brush with death came back to him. Suddenly, his eyes snapped open as he literally felt his body react to the symptoms. He could feel something inside of him respond to the nerves affected in conjunction with his burgeoning healing factor. After less than a full minute, the aches and pain were gone!

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_The microscopic dots began to secrete a golden-like substance that solidified once it made skin contact, taking on the consistency of liquid steel and then worked its way up and around his body, encasing it._

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"What the hell was that?" He exclaimed in fear.

"After you were brought to me by my drones, we found out that the techno-virus as you call it; had started eating through your suit as well as a good portion of your body." The avatar explained as she summoned a few floating holographic screens and pointed out several key points around the human representation on the screens. "It helped a little that your healing ability was slowing it down, but not by much. In my effort to aid you, I stumbled upon a tremendous amount of anomalies within your systems, specifically within your own DNA."

"What happened?" Xander studied the screens, half-relieved that there were some texts in English for his benefit. "And how the hell did you get all this data on me anyhow?"

"Like you, I am not native to this world. I have been traveling space for ages past and settled into this torn and war-ravaged world. It took some fixing, but I now control a very large percentage of this planet, especially its ecosystem. After I made sure my drones are able to safely control both of the planet's gravity and its seasons, I settled for a long semi-permanent nap. As time passed, I stayed dormant, only to rise for a short while and go back to sleep after doing self-diagnostics and launching exploration probes to learn of the universe in while I slept." She explained. "Your crash awoke me from my eons-old slumber. Since then I have been monitoring you, studying you, trying to learn all that I can to either welcome a potential first contact with an intelligent species or ignore you in favor of going back to my slumber. After finding your Technites, I chose to favor the first contact option."

"That still doesn't answer how you were able to get this much medical data on my species." Xander asked suspiciously. "I recognize some that data on the screens show very good copies of what the most recent medical journals in my world contain."

"The probe you have currently in orbit to scan this world had the data and coordinates to your home system and of your world as part of its primitive first encounter program." She answered. "Armed with that data, I sent a non-contact temporal information gathering probe to study and collect data."

"A what?" Xander stared, if he heard that right, then the applications of such a probe was frightening.

"Do not be concerned." The avatar said, watching the stress graphs rise slightly. "That class of probe was designed to study and collect intelligence on worlds being prepared for peaceful first contact scenarios. The obvious military capability is there but is frowned upon and considered only as a last resort. If detected, the probe would erase itself from the existing timeline of its discovery, pull itself out of the planet and then note the world as undesirable or too volatile for contact. It does not even carry any weapons as its primary objectives are only for observation."

"But that doesn't mean that there are other classes of probes built with military applications in mind, right?" Xander asked. It made sense; it sounded something like one of the Starks in his mindscape would actually build. The people at S.H.I.E.L.D. would just LOVE to get their hands on something like that.

"True." The observer replied. "But since I rarely need it or use them, they have been locked under cold storage since I originally first came online. Back to the topic at hand; since your almost fatal encounter with the technological virus, I have discovered that the data concerning normal human biology does not apply to you. While it is true that you have the base form appearance of what a typical human should be like at the prime of his or her young life right down to the internal general makeup, the genetic data you possess do not match at all."

"Basic human mutation shouldn't make that much of a drastic change." Xander thought aloud. "A chaos spell sort of changed me a bit during one of our more popular Earth holidays, but the last time I checked, they should still stay within the acceptable parameters I projected. What else did you find?"

The observer directed one of the floating screens to project her own findings. "This is the data I acquired when I first sent a probe to scan you while you were sleeping under the downed Asgard vessel." She said as she pointed at the data in question.

Xander felt a slight chill go up and down his spine when he saw that the data on the screen had changed from the data Loki showed him. Did that midget psychopath do something to him and didn't tell him? Even though the gray alien said that he was unable to map or alter Xander's DNA. The evidence on the screen said otherwise.

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_The golden substance took great care as it sped up the process and covered any exposed pores as well, covered, but not blocking out the host's need__ to survive_.

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As if reading his mind, the observer spoke. "My scans did not detect any Asgard re-engineering, over time they might, but not with the tools available within that downed ship." Then the observer showed him another screen full of data. "This is what your DNA looked like the moment your system was attacked by the technological virus when it ate through your suit."

Xander paled at what he saw. He just gaped as he stared back and forth from the screen and the observer's holographic avatar.

"Scaled analysis of the data would suggest a total of ten of your Earth months before genetic cascade failure will eventually occur before you even realize it." She said as she confirmed what the young man was thinking. "Your limited healing factor was slowing it down, however it will be overrun unless you get help. Fortunately for you, I helped."

"How did you help?" His face was still devoid of normal color.

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_He could feel his body responding to the change, a hidden knee-jerk instinctive need to jump out of his own skin as a claustrophobic sensation filled him for a brief instant certain pores on his skin closed for a fraction of a second, then started to breath again._

_"Not bad." He thought. "This is going to take some time to get used to."_

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A new screen popped up and it showed most of what she did. "To stop your immediate degradation, I used the remains of your micro-mechanized under-sheath to create a series of nanocell stabilizers. After that, I injected a miniscule DNA strand preserved by my creators to help augment your healing as theirs was far superior to your own." The observer said as she pointed at each screen, showing him the progress.

One particular screen showed some specific points on his body, Xander looked from the screen to some of the points that were barely visible on his actual flesh and he asked what they were.

"Those are stasis nodes, currently in activation mode." She replied. "Think of them as control surfaces to allow you to summon the now reconstructed under-sheath to cover your body and prime it for armor usage. The under-sheath, when dormant, will split apart, some of them will stay between the hollows of your bones as part of the marrow. The others become fluidic and surround the muscles overlaying the bones themselves. They are totally safe and they help protect against damage. The nanocells themselves are active at all times to help you stay alive, literally. Without them, not even the DNA I gave you as a stopgap measure will save you from total biological cascade failure before your body has acclimatized itself to the new DNA re-sequencing. Maybe in the future, they will be removed, but for now, you need them inside of you to stay alive."

"So I am no longer human then." Xander said softly, a note of disgust entering the tones of his voice.

"No, I am sorry to say that because of whatever happened to set you on this path, your changes are permanent." The observer said. "However, the nanocells will help a great deal in that regard."

"Like how?" Xander snarled. "You already said it yourself, I'm no longer human."

"You still have the general outline of one." She replied. "Though your DNA has been altered right down to the sub-cellular level, your general shape and appearance did not change. I sent another temporal probe back to your homeworld to look for your records specifically while I kept you in stasis. With a little unknowing help from your Earth-based AI, I was able to get enough data in regards to your original DNA to program them into the nanocells. While I may not be able to reverse your change, I programmed the nanocells to mimic the data output for any scans or tests on your person to reflect that of a normal healthy human in his active prime even down to any hemoglobin samples taken from your body. Those that know the truth are the only ones here unless you decide to tell someone else. I've even managed to shield you from any Asgardian biological detection that can differentiate you from a normal human based on the data I pulled from the downed Asgard vessel."

"How long did all this take?" Xander asked.

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_The liquid feeling of the pseudo-metal persisted as it ran over his skin and started solidifying into a protective flexible, hard shell. _

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"You were treated for a little over a week by human temporal standards." She replied.

"Thanks I guess." The young genius said with a rueful grin. "I owe you big time then. By the way, I never heard your name when you've already known mine."

The observer's avatar blinked, unsure of how to proceed with that question.

"I've never had a personal designation even since I was first activated." She said. "I've always been simply known as the caretaker and observer of this place. Though I was designed to be among organic sentient beings in mind, you and your Technites are the first to have ever set foot within the ship with having clear knowledge of me."

"Oh." Xander said, humbled by the honor bestowed to him and to his Technites.

"You are most welcome." The avatar replied.

"No offense, but do you classify yourself as male or female?" Xander asked out of idiot curiosity, the Stark gestalt in his mindscape had pushed the question out despite his protests.

"Hmmm..." The observer gave it some thought. "The race that created me had a society based on equals with no discrimination based on either sexual or racial stereotypes. My direct creator-slash-designer was female; however, as you can see by how the holographic avatar closely resembled her."

"Oh." Xander said again, this time wondering at what cosmic joke led the humans to create a comic book race that closely mirrored a for real long-dead one that hadn't been heard in so long that they were forgotten to have existed.

"What was her name?" He asked.

The avatar gave an unintelligible stream of words that it could not translate. When the avatar saw that Xander was having trouble as the translation matrix was unsuccessful, she apologized. "I am sorry; their names elude the translation matrix's ability to convert the correct vowels into your language. They are partly lyrical and musical in their intonations. Even their race's name was hard enough that I simplified it for you. As a whole, they can be called the 'Aerie', and I am the testament of a race that stretched across the universe in their quest for knowledge."

"Do you mind if I called you Lilandra, though?" Xander asked.

"That is acceptable." She said with a smile after she thought about it and made a mental note to research why the young man settled on that one.

Especially since it was the first word he said aloud when he woke up and saw her.

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_He spied a reflection of himself on one of the floor to ceiling windows that led to the vast underwater universe beyond them. _

_He stared at it for a full minute as the last of the protection closed up on his face._

_He gaped in stupefaction. In spite of the connecting lines that ran around his new undersheath, the resemblance to something familiar was unmistakable._

_"I look like a freaking academy award statue!"_

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"Lilandra." Xander tentatively asked. "Was there anything left of my armor prior to my being in your care?"

"No" The avatar replied. "The technological virus rendered your armor into metallic crystal dust, there was nothing left. I have examined your armor during your first night here and I believe I can machine a reasonable facsimile for you."

Xander mulled over this bit of information. As much as he wanted to have his old armor back without all the stuff Loki added in without his permission, he never got around to finding out what the rest of the new stuff was thanks to the damned virus.

"You can copy the technology my armor had?" The young genius asked.

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_His body lifted a few feet off the ground once the full body sheath was completely in place, and then various shimmering gravitational fields appeared around him as pieces of his new armor coalesced and flew to their respective places on his body._

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"It is not at all that difficult." Lilandra replied as she brought up the schematics of Xander's short-lived Mark 1 armor. "The second temporal probe I sent to look for your specific data also took the time to download your own armor designs stored inside your Earth-based AI designated 'JARVIS'. Why, do you have some changes in mind?"

"I'm thinking about it." Xander said as the Starks ran some theoretical designs inside his head. "Did your creators ever create power armors in the past?"

"Yes, they did." She answered as she brought up a few of the premier armors the Aerie had amongst its military and research branches and displayed the more recent ones to the young man that was prior to her own activation. "Although, I should let you know that they were rather fond of incorporating their designs with bird-like motifs. Everything they created showed a passion for freedom without limits and of flight."

Figures, Xander thought as he looked at the designs the avatar called up on the screens. One of their designs even vaguely resembled an armored Archangel from Marvel Comics, once again prompting the question of how some of the comic book artists were able to tap into this sort of imagery. It was as if they had unconsciously accessed a window into the past or into alternate realities for their inspirations.

Xander involuntarily winced when he came upon an armor that utilized feather-like metallic wings for propulsion; they looked too flimsy and showy in his opinion, even though Lilandra assured him that their metallurgy was eons beyond his own re-modified Adamantium formula. The helmet looked a bit art deco, but simple enough to be practical and reminded him a bit of a variation of the Mithril-Hawks that he used to watch as a kid that belonged to the lead character named Speed Mercury.

"Just how accurate can you replicate my armor with some slight modifications to the frame and structural integrity?" He asked as he studied the image.

"Accurate enough to a frightening degree, I would wager." She replied as she went through the list of needed to be done. "I can also easily fix the micro-flaws in the chemical formula that you overlooked when you made your Adamantium. I can tell you that your current type of micro-circuitry design with your existing nanites is just a few steps away from my creators' own earlier bio-cellular circuitry that they developed at the start of their ultimate advancements. I've noticed that your FTL designs also need a little further push as well, as it stands now, without the proper guidance controls, you could very well end up inside a sun or a black hole. You'll never go home that way intact. And lastly, your ingenious power plant, wastes at least five percent of total power maintained when it should be completely at zero percent."

Xander made a face, a little indignant at the mention of the flaws in his designs that Lilandra ticked off one by one, but he had to swallow his pride and admit that the ancient AI would indeed know better just because of what she was and where she came from.

"Ok, let's get to work and see what we can come up with then." Xander sighed, partially thankful that an ancient, but very advanced AI was willing to help him literally iron out the kinks in his designs. It was sort of surprising really, that he got this far with his Earth's tech. The technology portrayed in the comic books, even in its twentieth century timeline, was more advanced than its real world counterpart was. He was lucky enough to be able to recreate most of it by making sure he got JARVIS up and running first.

Then he thought about the "Ted" android and had a feeling that his Earth may not be that far behind with the comic books if one knew where to look. After all, humanity made incredible leaps in the field of technology at the start of the twentieth century, outside influence may very well be a possible answer to some of the questions some theorists posed.

"Lilandra?" Xander called to the avatar, to which she replied with a nod.

"Can you tell me about yourself and of your creators while we work?" He asked with a grin.

"It would be my pleasure." She answered.

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_The leg pieces and boots were the first to adhere itself over his body that suspended in mid-air._

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"Whew." Xander said, breathed a sigh of relief. It had taken a lot of time and effort, and a lot of wasted designs, and a lot more false starts, but they were able to refine and machine a new one from scratch with the new improved Adamantium formula the avatar so graciously helped him fix.

"This is as good as its going to get." He grinned at it his latest handiwork.

Lilandra nodded as she reviewed all the data Xander placed into her systems. The armor seemed to be a major upgrade from his previous model, but it was not a high enough an upgrade to surpass his machine shop back home on Earth.

In fact, the only thing supremely advanced was the undersheath she developed to help keep him alive. She made sure to slightly alter the sheathing inconspicuously so it can auto repair itself and tied it to the young genius's healing factor.

"It is still a bit primitive for my taste." She said aloud. "Are you sure that these are the changes you wish to make on your new armor?"

Xander punched in a few more safety measures into the armor before he replied in the affirmative.

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_The groin armor connected to the leg pieces, he floated back to the ground as the rest of his armor caught up._

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"Yep." Xander replied. "The undersheath you made for me is a lot more important now than the armor. In fact, it outstrips it. While my undersheath must be protected at all times once active, I still need to leave a few things out so I can easily tinker with the rest of the armor with my own tools back on Earth until I get most of my tech up to par with my new undersheath. The interface we made will allow me to use any of my past and future armor that I may make as the need arises. This way, I won't be locked onto one single armor set with this undersheath."

"I see." Lilandra nodded. "A very sensible approach."

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_The gauntlets and the rest of the arm pieces attached themselves to him, docking into the connectors underneath the shoulder mounts. He flexed them, satisfied that they had a wide range of motion._

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"Yeah, I know." Xander reasoned. "I can't very well maintain whatever you can manufacture right out of your proverbial box on Earth without your help. I'm just being practical, that's all. Besides, you already told me that the undersheath is self-sustaining and can easily upgrade itself just like my Technites with me as the controlling AI. Too bad you can't come with me yet."

"Indeed." Lilandra said. "While it is true that I may not accompany you on your first journey back, I will follow soon as I am finished with this planet's star system. It's time is nearing its end and I will indeed, have to move soon."

"Huh." The young genius shook his head. "Nothing like a star dying to get you to move. Wish I could be here to see that one."

The avatar nodded. "But you are needed back home because of the constant threat to your world both from within and without that you told me about. And that is why we are doing this."

Standing side by side with the new Mark 2 design on the holographic screen, was a modeled mock up of the refit they did to the now, bigger, Halcyon with a working FTL drive based on the same principles that drove the temporal probes.

Quite similar to Xander's Space Fold System, which was the basic framework for his own original FTL designs which, ironically, was also based on the Shi'ar of one of his Stark gestalt's universe.

That fact puzzled the ancient avatar, so she asked Xander how it had so closely mirrored the first alternative FTL step her creators took.

"When you finally come to my world, then you'll see." Xander replied, cryptically.

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_The abdominal and upper torso armor then snapped into place once the shoulder mounts were secure. A crackle of energy lit up the room for a second as the suit's main systems came online. A passive, tightly knit, force field wrapped itself around the entire suit, strengthening the exposed portions of the undersheath that peeked out from some places on the armor and gave it the same consistency as the metal on top of it, turning it into one single holistic unit._

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Outside of normal space/time, beyond what even the mighty observer now dubbed "Lilandra" could detect, Eternity was laughing his head off at the name that Xander chose for the ancient sentient AI. He even smiled and approved of the conversations that followed. The name Xander chose for the AI would throw a few things out of place because he knew that one of the SG1 teammates was a bit of a comic geek, especially when it comes to fantastical technology.

That would convince anyone on Earth if he even used the excuse that he was from another dimension.

Eternity grinned as he sent a subliminal suggestion to the captain of a certain Asgard cruiser a few star systems away to make a slight detour as it chased down a runaway replicator-infested ship that just showed up on his sensors.

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_The helmet closed up and a thrum of power filled his senses when the last major connection fell into place. The visor readouts ticked off a standard (for him) preflight checklist that turned green as the markers passed each one and corresponded with the neural impulses in his brain in confirmation at the speed of thought. _

_He took a deep breath. With the last of the armor pieces now in place, the weight evenly distributed itself and gave him a sense of weightlessness on top of his undersheath as the secondary passive force fields activated, closing off any holes left on his armor that the first shields missed. _

_"OK, now that's a nice surprise." He said, amazed at the results. "I can practically wear this indefinitely if I had to even if the power runs out."_

_He looked back at the reflection on the glasslike window and approved at what he saw._

_"Are you sure about this?" Lilandra asked the moment she appeared beside him._

_"I've been gone too long, Lil." Xander said as he clambered aboard the refitted Halcyon. Most of the Technites were already within specially designed compartments made just for them from the refit. A few of them under the double command of Bitz and Wetz's "cousins - Hanz and Franz, however, chose to remain with Lilandra to help oversee the final stages that the gigantic ship started in order to leave the world it had come to briefly call home. _

_"I'm worried about my friends." Xander continued. "Aside from you and my new Technites, they are all I have."_

_"I've uploaded a few data files that are safe for you to look through with your knowledge-base." Lilandra said. "And since only you can read my language, it should be safe. So please be very careful with those."_

_The young genius smiled. "Always…" _

_To Lilandra's surprise, Xander straightened and gave her a passable Shi'arian salute._

_"My creators would have been proud to have you as one of them own, Xander." She declared in admiration. "As a matter of fact, you already are with that minute strand of DNA within you. Now, prepare for teleport launch sequence."_

_Running through the final pre-flight checklists on the Halcyon itself, Xander gave he the thumb's up gesture._

_"I'll see you soon." Xander called out from the Halcyon as it lifted off the ground and started to hover over to the teleportation launch circle._

-0-0-0-0-0-

The ancient AI kept track of the silvery-blue shape as it pushed through the Ghul's planetary atmosphere moments later and vanished in a rainbow of lights.

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A few star systems away, a spatial anomaly appeared nearby as a large pyramid-shape vessel was forcibly ejected from hyperspace.

"What happened?" Samantha Carter stared at the controls.

"We must have caught the tail end of the blast wave." Her father, Jacob Carter, said as he studied the main control console with apprehension clearly written on his face. "It blew us off course."

A noise behind them signaled the appearance of Jack and Daniel on the bridge. It took her a second to realize that it was only them.

"Sir?" She asked. "Where's Teal'c?"

"I'm not sure." Jack replied as he and Daniel shared a quick glance. "I think he may be dead."

Sam stared, feeling as though a cold hand had wrapped around her insides.

"That's assuming Apophis has him." Jacob said from his place on the console.

"We have to go back!" Sam cried, her face a mirror to the one on both of the other men's faces.

"That may not be possible Sam." Jacob said, frustrated at the lack of a good response from the navigation system. "The navigational computer isn't recognising any of the star patterns." Then the half human, half Tok'ra paled when the navigation system confirmed his worst fear. "According to these readings, we've traveled over 4 million light years."

They all stared at him, shock wiping the worry they felt for their comrade from their face at the news.

"That's impossible!" Sam exclaimed.

Jacob just pointed at the machine and replied. "If I'm reading this right, we aren't in our own galaxy anymore."

His daughter studied the readings herself as she spoke her thoughts aloud. "The explosion must have somehow affected the subspace window created by the hyperdrive. That's the only explanation I can think of."

"Wait a minute." Jack said; his voice slightly higher than normal. "Can we even get back?"

"I don't know." Jacob replied beside his daughter. "The ship isn't normally capable of going so fast."

"Well, DUH!" Jack bit out. "It only took us a few seconds to get here!"

"Given our current position, and maximum hyperdrive speed, it's gonna take us 125 years to get back." Jacob bit back.

"This is NOT happening." Jack thought aloud. "This is NOT the delta quadrant. We're not on the Starship Voyager."

Then Jack pointed at Jacob. "Gender aside, you are NOWHERE even close to being Captain Janeway."

The human Tok'ra didn't even bother to dignify that comment with a response as he spotted something on the console readouts the same time his daughter did.

"Long range sensors are picking up another ship." He announced and blanched when their ship recognized the incoming spacecraft.

"It's Apophis..."

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-TO BE CONTINUED—

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A/N: Terribly sorry for the long wait, I really had no time because a lot of things are going on in my RL. In any case, I have some mixed feelings in regards to this chapter. A friend of mine read my story and tried to do some sort of comic book storyboard for it…. I liked it and tried to implement his style into this chapter…. The italicized paragraphs up to the time he left showed glimpses of the new armor…. I can only hope it translated well.

Also, I know some of you have some thoughts that I may have wandered off of focus with the story the last chapter…

Well, in my own defense; you try writing while you go through the stresses of working through a car accident and having to deal with the insane insurance company of the maroon who hit me and see how you like it. Once this is over, then I'll be back on track.

That's the good news…. The bad news is that it will take me a bit longer now to update my stories as we get closer to this year's end. I'll probably be working my butt off to save up for Xmas presents for the family and that means less time to concentrate on myself and my own needs. I promise though that I will NEVER abandon this story. I'm treating each chapter as if they were one whole comic book per chapter… that's how I originally envisioned them. The chapter length goes by how much I "see" them unfold in my mind's eye (and that includes my way of writing them down like a jigsaw puzzle and put them together that way).

Until then, any changes to this chapter and the others will come and go as my heavy schedule permits.

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	22. Interlude: Earthside 2

XANDER HARRIS: THE IRON TAU'RI

By:"Gunsmith3000"

Started 5-19-08

Completed: ??

Disclaimers: Nothing belongs to me other than this insane idea I have that just won't let go. Iron Man belongs to Marvel, Stargate SG1 belongs to Paramount. Buffy belongs to Joss Whedon.

Summary: Xander goes as one of his favorite marvel comic characters, but gets more than he's bargained for.

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Interlude: Earthside 2 (and then some...)

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For perhaps the hundredth time, Paul Davis stared at the latest report that reached his desk concerning a possible security issue in regards to the new company that had risen fast in the last year: Paladin Core Industries. Looking inside, the report included notes concerning a few new "advancements" that the company was in the process of developing that was almost too good to be true that the techies in the military thought it would be useful in their black fields. Most of the applications they could think to apply it reconnaissance; the new Pal-Core micro-cams they marketed for the entertainment industry as part of their holographic studios for instance - they improved on the button-style camera design their espionage division had been using for over two decades and made it even smaller, undetectable by the usual means.

The mounting influx of information started to give the man a routine headache because some of the changes seemed outrageous enough to make them think it had outside help. By meaning "outside help" - it meant "extraterrestrial" help. Not even Knight Industries back in the day was this progressively aggressive in churning out new developments, thought their AI's back then were no to laughing matter. He didn't even want to touch on the fact that the other developments under wraps in OSI was another matter entirely.

The man sighed and pulled up the file that they started compiling when the new company caught their notice. It mysteriously seemed to have sprung out of nowhere; and came from a town they almost NEVER noticed named Sunnydale, in California, of all places. The company had filed a patent for an operating system that seem light-years ahead of what the major companies combined could have done to date. It became popular in the private technological community, so popular that the FBI got a copy for testing as they were always looking for ways to beef up their electronic data security system. Advanced as it was, the OS was also simplistic in its nature that it was not only easy to pick up and use, but the base user interface did not treat you as if you needed special classes just to learn how to use it.

The result of their testing garnered more attention from the military think-tanks and it got the ball rolling with feasibility inquiries to see it they can add Pal-Core to their list of resources in the private sector.

When they purchased another copy, they sent it to their software techs. They, in turn, tried to pick apart its programming, but weren't able to as to do so would simply lock the data and crash the system. It was even a major surprise to them when they used the repair disk on their test unit; it really did repair the mess they made back to where the data had been before they corrupted it by accident. They did it again on purpose this time to see if it was a fluke. They ran it into cyber-hell every which way that they could think of, a successful system restore rate of one hundred percent occurred every single time they used the repair disk, including the way they had set it up in the first place with no data lost. Most of them swore that something like that was not possible with the recovery systems from the other major software firms once a file corruption was evident. It was never the same result, and neither was the data in any way salvageable. Barring actual hardware failure, the software system was incorruptible as long as the data it was stored in was good.

Then there was the solid-state quad-chip data block (not drive, "blocks", it looks like a regular hard drive, but it's completely solid. No loose internal mechanisms at all) that complemented the new OS they got. The block was a new type of digital storage device that had more memory than a standard hard drive used for Cray computers. The new standard PC running on the latest Windows or Macintosh/Apple software for the household consumer ran up to at least 80GB max per system. The Cray usually had drives running up to at least a terabyte per slot, minimum. The solid-state data block not only housed a drive that easily beat a singular drive blade by ten more terabytes, but also had a quad-core microchip processor with its own in-built security system that can be hooked up to their current Crays. As long as the OS was installed, they didn't have to tear the current Cray shelves down and replace them, they only have to get rid of the older drives and put in the new ones because they were compatible with the original setup.

Hell, dual-core technology was still theoretical and was barely off the design boards due to several problems, but this new company was able to go beyond that and manufacture something that flew in the face of current engineering. Yet, when a representative went on one of the many tours Pal-Core now hosted for potential investors/buyers/clients/etc, the answer as to how it was possible felt like a slap to the face for only looking at their current limitations. Davis was only glad it wasn't Samantha Carter that they tapped as a representative at the time because they knew she was just as bad as Daniel Jackson when it came to a topic they had built their life and careers on to the point of obsession. She'd never leave the place unless her team or the President himself dragged her bodily from the building.

On one part of the tour, the rep saw how the new company took a few currently existing products with a computer running beside the display and digitally broke it down to its component parts while highlighting each product's singular use. When done, the computer showed a process that redesigned the various components into something that actually looked simplistic and worked right. There were no problems even with the legalities of their products, because the end-result never actually made you think to look back at the originals. A matter of fact, you can't. Whoever was running the supposed design teams in Pal-Core did it by just looking at several products. They studied and took hints at what each could and could not do, then created something that most of the times, did both, at twice the efficiency and less than the combined costs of the original stand-alones.

In trying to know more about the company, their research teams found a list of the few who had supposedly collaborated with Pal-Core before it went "public" with their OS. It showed a possible answer: most (if not all) of the people that had possible connections with Pal-Core were some of the shunned outcasts in the technological and scientific communities. The company had supposed ties with those inventors that had been laughed at because their theories were either too outlandish or to considered astronomically expensive and next to impossible to achieve. They were people who didn't have a job, or their company was going under because a lot of them were supposedly crazy and or too radical that the competition saw them as a threat. One of them even looked like the mad scientist portrayed in the Back to The Future films. All of them did not fit the criteria for a terrorist, yet more than half of them were fit to be committed to the funny farm for thinking stranger than the normal crowd, and only a few were completely legit – albeit struggling – companies. Even Moller was one of those that had supposed ties to the company.

Davis sighed again. Maybe it was time that he made a trip to Pal-Core himself to get a first-hand feel for them. His superiors weren't known for their eternal patience, especially since one of them was actually the CIC. He picked a date not too far off into the future and readied a bag full of non-disclosure agreements.

-0-0-0-0-0-

JARVIS sighed, what was it about anal government spies/analysts/researchers/what have you that kept trying to verify the information in such a paranoid way as to make everything seem like a joke? The AI had already alerted the "pinged" parties, yet again, about another incoming inquiry in regards to their association and legitimization of Pal-Core.

His creator knew well enough that a lot of people would grow suspicious of a new company that had seemingly appeared fully-grown from a single patent. He made certain steps to make it look as if Pal-Core had been the result of a unification of certain down-on-their luck technological firms that "died" a corporate death by their competitors because they were too interested in making things rather than learn to play with business politics. The first thing Xander did before he put the OS through patents was to recruit a few failing, but promising companies, including private (and in some cases, completely broke, but trustworthy inventors) for a small tête-à-tête to try combining under a unified "flag" of sorts. They can create things to their heart's content, while he and "his" people (which was JARVIS at first, since the AI could manufacture things non-stop) will be the sharks that will keep the big-bag competitors off their backs. Anything that came after was the result of everyone's part in doing the best they could and try to make each and every theory they had come to fruition. Xander had VETO power, however, in terms of "world endage" material, or on things that were deemed "We may be crazy, but we're NOT that stupid" category.

Of course, Xander also had to disclose a few home truths of the supernatural variety to those he knew that had first-hand experience with the darker side of their world, and a bit of his own secret included. Xander knew he had to be honest with these people, he can sympathize where they were coming from, and that though they were smart to a point that sometimes overshadowed practical reality these geniuses were not stupid. To those trusted few, they happily jumped at the chance to make a difference in the world for the right reasons. It also helped that their new boss had the combined intellect of one Anthony "Tony" Stark aka Iron Man multiplied several times over to make one singular Reed Richards develop brain envy.

Those that Xander chose not disclose to, were kept an at arms length and were monitored by JARVIS in case they either went rogue, or become this reality's version of Doctor Doom. Xander also inherited the Starks' version of paranoia, he had the AI keep an eye on EVERYTHING and EVERYONE – not for control, no - but to ensure that not one of them would blow up the planet in the name of science and progress by accident – himself included. Which is what the AI was doing ever since; along with the lines he now established within the connected government data mainframes without their knowledge.

JARVIS could only hope that his creator would get back in time, every one of his closest friends were already getting restlessly concerned.

-0-0-0-0-0-

On the other side of the extra-galactic expanse, Xander was not the least bit amused as he stared at the Goa'uld ship that wasn't even supposed to be this far out from where he had left Lilandra's current home star system.

He was even less amused at finding three distinctively humanoid Earth-class lifesigns within it after he scanned it.

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TBC

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A/N: I'm back.. somewhat. The going is slow and I am slowly finding the time to write again. I cross my fingers and hope I can churn out another chapter by next week. Belated happy holidays to all!


	23. Chapter 21

XANDER HARRIS: THE IRON TAU'RI  
By:"Gunsmith3000"  
Started 5-19-08  
Completed: ?????

Disclaimers: Nothing belongs to me other than this insane idea I have that just won't let go. Iron Man belongs to Marvel, Stargate SG1 belongs to MGM. Buffy belongs to Joss... blah, blah

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Summary: Xander goes as one of his favorite marvel comic characters, but gets more than he's bargained for.

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-  
The Voyage Home (part 2)  
- In which we meet face to face -  
-

-  
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Xander was annoyed at what had brought him to this predicament.

No sooner had he entered the first phase of Fold space travel, the corridor he was in destabilized due to an unknown energy surge that spat him right back out to normal space. Only then, he found out from Hal's sensors that a sun had gone supernova prematurely in normal space some time ago and its eddies had somehow breached the corridor. That meant it was NOT a normal occurrence.

That wasn't the big shocker though.

The sight of a Goa'uld ship that showed signs of recent battle damage that was NOT supposed to be in the area nearly ran down his cloaked craft was what did it for him. Granted that the universe was one helluva big place, the relatively small area of space where the Fold system ejected him was suddenly crowded with just one ship that was bigger than him.

The young engineer blinked when the Technites within Hal suddenly became agitated, and that could mean only one thing: Replicators. He stared at the ship, this was going to get ugly, he thought.

He maintained cloak and tracked the pyramid vessel from a safe distance outside. He really didn't want to rehash his experience with the Replicators even though his new Technites wanted some payback.

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After a small discussion with his companions, Xander separated from the Halcyon under stealth and aimed himself towards the Goa'uld ship a few levels below where Hal's new scanners picked up human life signatures. A few of the Technites led by Digit went ahead towards another area to see what can be done about them, maybe to try to destroy them and take control of the ship. Any Goa'uld left in there would become cannon fodder or meat shields against the Replicators. The Technites knew it was cruel to think that way, but it would be a small mercy to them compared to the fate of an ignoble death by the technological versions of the Brood.

Persat, of course, under orders from Digit stayed behind to assist Xander in place of the lead Technite. She locked herself securely unto his back, in the recess where Digit would normally be. The female Technite didn't even look out of place as she blended right in with his armor.

He felt the shimmer of the ship's navigational shields as he made his way uncontested towards what looked like a smaller access hatch on the far side of the alien pyramid craft around the area that lacked much of the battle scars that occurred recently. Once he landed on the outer hull closest to the hatch in question, Persat started sending out an unlocking algorithm signal in Goa'uld, only to come up with nothing.

To the pernicious Technite's surprise, the hatch was not code-locked. In fact, it was welded shut due to long exposure to the rigors of centuries of unprotected space travel. There was no lock at all other than the thing was simply "rusted over". No measure was even made to put a secure system around the area, it made Xander think that either they forgot all about it, or were just so set into their own superiority to consider it as a potential risk.

Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, Xander used that discovery to his advantage. After he was sure to get a good enough scan inside and around the entrance for activity, finding none, he used the new armor's enhanced strength to peel off the ancient hatch almost clean off from its moorings and floated right in once the vacuum sucked whatever loose debris was inside out.

Once inside, it really did look as if this part of the pyramid ship showed no signs of use for some time; most of the systems barely registered any recent internal power usage. Xander shook his head, he turned back and reached for the torn hatch and started to weld it back shut while Persat did as much as she could to equalize the internal pressure of the area before the her creator finished the welding. His task done, he walked towards door he spotted on his way in.

After traveling through several empty corridors, some that showed recent signs of a pitched firefight, he figured that they must have abandoned the lower levels and started to make his way up. Persat, comfortably latched onto his back, was able to override one of the nearby lifts doors open temporarily and Xander picked a random destination as he flew upwards.

On his way up, he met up with some of the Replicators. Persat emerged from his back and hissed at them. A firefight ensued as the duo made their way upwards from below decks.

-0-0-0-0-0-

In another part of the ship, SG1 was involved in a pitched battle between the Replicators and the Jaffa. What made it worse was the fact that Teal'c was the one leading the Jaffa charge against them.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Xander was starting to get annoyed. It embarrassed him enough that he got lost in the maze-like corridors, but with new information from the rest of his wayward Technites who were fighting on the other part of the ship, he found out that he was headed to one of the shuttle bays. He had just finished a sweeping attack in one of the corridors full of Replicators when he ran into another one, this time full of Jaffa. With no such time for niceties, he cut them down amidst their weapons barrage and almost bodily ran through two members of SG1 that had just rounded a corner from the opposite direction. He saw them kneel at a downed Jaffa in armor that suspiciously looked a hell of a lot like Teal'c from his SGC dossier.

What was the former first Prime of Apophis doing back in Jaffa Prime armor? He shelved his inner query for the time being when they caught sight of him and froze. They recovered from their shock and bared their weapon in his direction. Xander did the same as he casually raised both hands, unbeknownst to them, palm open with a clear shot right at them without their knowledge.

The scene resembled a classic Mexican standoff as each "party" stood frozen in a tableau short of firing at each other. For Xander, it had been a while since he had been in actual contact with earth-stock humans, so it was a bit disconcerting to see them that he cocked his head to one side the moment he saw them with a fascinated look on his face.

They just gaped in open-mouthed shock at seeing the armored individual that bore some resemblance to the one that had taken part in the rescue during the rogue fighter incident. Jacob/Selmak wisely stood still as not to draw too much attention while he studied the newcomer.

Xander noted with dismay that his eyes weren't playing tricks on him and that Teal'c was indeed wearing Goa'uld armor. On a whim, he spoke in the robotic dual-voice that he had patterned after the ones the Stark Gestalt used in their respective realities as their Iron Man persona.

"Do you serve the Goa'uld?" He asked menacingly as he feigned ignorance of who they actually were.

It wasn't really hard for Xander to act like he shot first then asked questions later since the armor lack any real facial expression. The almost dual-tones of his Goa'uld-like voice caused them to back up in trepidation.

"No we don't." Jack ground out in defiance, his back ramrod straight at the declaration. He'll be damned if they ever serve them in any way possible.

"Fascinating." Xander said in reply as an idea started to form. "Now what are you doing here in this sector of space?"

Jack studied the armored being in front of him, it didn't look like the alien had any obvious weapons that he could identify out of hand, but from the looks of the what seemed to be over a dozen Jaffa out on the floor behind "him", the thing could very well be a weapon unto itself.

"We're trying to get out of here." Jack said

Beside him, Sam looked as if something she ate went down the wrong pipe as she took in the sight of other figure's armor. A sense of familiarity enveloped her, but that would be impossible because she had never seen the new alien before or the strange armor it wore – if it WAS armor at all.

A Replicator chose that moment to skitter out of one of the alcoves and drew their attention. Xander, out of reflex from his upwards battle with them from below decks, casually blasted it with a negative-type hard plasma bolt that came out of a faring on his left shoulder that retracted afterwards.

Xander felt them stare in amazement, especially Sam as the weapon retracted. The NPB, as Xander called it, was the only Aerie weapon Xander allowed Lilandra to include into his basic armor design as it was the only weapon he could think of that was of "the lowest grade Aerie tech" for him to maintain without the need of outside help, namely Lilandra's. Of course, the AI was insulted at the way Xander called it a low grade piece of equipment. Unfortunately, the A.I. knew that whatever else she might think to include into Xander's designs would have to go back to her for maintenance, as she was the only one that had the technology to do so. The weapon was almost similar to an energy dissipater – like the one used by one of Stark's old enemies against his armor until he found a way around it via ridiculously numerous redundant backup systems, but more compact and just as powerful – if not more so. And the best thing about it was that it didn't make the new armor look like a smaller Hulk-buster version, because that was how many the redundant backup systems were in the original armor Tony used.

Xander knew that they were equally dangerous to the Replicators AND to his Technites however, so he had to be wary of where he was firing them as he sacrificed the Aerie auto-lock targeting system due to being incompatible to his as close to human designed armor. Anything that moved within at least a half-mile radius of the super-fast bolts would be destroyed if he didn't watch it.

"What are you?" Samantha Carter breathed as she studied the armor Xander wore intensely, something nagged at the back of her head, a feeling of familiarity, but she couldn't say what, or why.

They got another shock as the odd helmet creased ever so slightly almost like a face as the slits that represented eyes and mouth formed a distorted approximation of a human giving a grin. Now all of them wondered if it was actually the alien's face and not just armor, as it appeared to be.

"If you're not with the Goa'uld, then we should move out of this ship fast." Xander suggested, as he evaded the question she asked.

"What I said." Jack snarked. "We were heading towards the bay to escape, but we couldn't leave T over here."

At the armored being's inquiring tilt of the head, Sam explained that the resident Goa'uld that was currently in commanded of the ship brainwashed Teal'c. She surmised that they must have brainwashed Teal'c through some sort of torture or mindwipe, as the former First Prime would never willingly go back into service of his old master.

Xander nodded in understanding and moved towards their downed comrade. He easily hoisted the unconscious form onto one shoulder. "Then we move." He said. "You lead and I'll follow."

Jack wanted to argue about having an unknown element bring up their rear, but stalled it when they saw more Replicators coming out of another alcove. Without a word, they ran for it.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Apophis tried to get the console in front of him to work. His frustration was evident as the sensors had finally outlived their usefulness. The so-called "god" growled in rage, almost mentally willing the thing to work out of sheer fury. A skittering sound came from behind him and the Goa'uld turned in time to see Replicators crawling all over his throne.

His eyes flared silver.

-0-0-0-0-0-

"Here ya go!" Jack said to Daniel the moment they met up.

Daniel Jackson turned and stared in shock at the newcomer that brought up the rear as it carried Teal'c in. "Who are you?"

"Jack?" Jacob said; his voice on edge from the way the armored being was looking at him even when it laid Teal'c onto the deck.

The armored individual finished his scan on Jacob and said in lieu of his earlier question. "My scans indicate the presence of a full-grown live symbiote inside your companion. If you're not with them, why is one with you?"

"We are Tok'Ra." Selmak replied as Jacob wondered how the being was able to scan them. Whoever this newcomer was, he most assuredly must come from an as-yet unheard of advanced society, a society that they may wish to form an alliance with. "The only Goa'uld similarity WE have about us is our species. We do not believe in enslaving other civilizations to do our bidding. We only seek to co-exist with others and grow along with them, free from Goa'uld tyranny."

"So you say." Xander wasn't entirely convinced, but was interrupted before he could say more when Daniel was able to tear his eyes off the new arrival to look over their fallen comrade.

"He's been shot!" The archeologist exclaimed, glancing at the newcomer suspiciously.

"He resisted a little." Jack said as he drew Daniel's attention.

"We thought you guys weren't going to make it." He said and turned to Sam. "Who is he?"

"Who I am is of no consequence." Xander replied before Sam could open her mouth to ask him. "You and these Goa'uld should not be in this area of space."

"Well." Jack said. "It's not as if we PLANNED to be here."

Suddenly, the whole ship lurched, a clear sign to the more space-faring Tok'Ra that it entered Hyperspace more violently than normally intended.

"What was that?" Jack asked.

"The mothership just jumped into Hyperspace." Jacob stated the obvious.

"Now what?" Jack asked.

"Now?" Jacob answered. "Nothing. We can't open the cargo bay doors and fly out of here while we're in hyperspace."

-0-0-0-0-0-

While they discussed their options, Xander was silently communicating with the rest of this Technites that were still fighting with their nemesis. It seemed that the Replicators on board acknowledged that the Technites are a very serious threat to them, and were making steps to try to rectify that by trying to acquire more technology as they could not assimilate the Technites.

-0-0-0-0-0-

"According to this…" Jacob said as he stopped by a console and brought whatever system ignored by the Replicators to his attention. "The ship is headed toward the last set of coordinates that were entered ...Sok'Ar's old planet. Apophis's new base."

Sam's eye's widened at what she read along with her father. "Uh, dad?"

"I see it." Jacob said worriedly. "The ship is traveling at ten times it's capable hyperspeed."

At the same time, Xander was getting the same data from Digit. It was at lot more detailed. For the first time, the Replicators started to believe that they have met a type technology that they could not assimilate.

What the hell did the Aerie AI do to his Technites? He asked to himself.

Meanwhile, Sam kept on reading and her face showed amazement. "The ship's speed is still increasing ... 12 times ... 20 times ... 30! This is incrediable! The bugs must have modified the engines."

"They can do that?" Jacob asked in disbelief.

"They can do almost anything." She said. "They are very advanced. The individual blocks can come together to achieve whatever pattern they need to achieve their goal."

Much like my Technites, Xander thought, grimly.

"But I thought they didn't care about traveling fast." Daniel inquired. "They never have before as far as we know."

"Only while they're multiplying." Sam replied, still reading. "Once they've reached a critical number, they look for new technology to consume."

Or, Xander voiced silently, when they're faced with something that can bring them close to feeling fear for the first time, Xander ordered Digit to try for a victory rather than trying to distract. Digit was only happy to oblige but responded and warned him that a new development had occurred and that they have discovered something that might be "bad".

Before Xander could ask, his attention went back to the conversation in front of him.

"The information in the computer about Apophis's base must make it look pretty appetizing." Jacob thought aloud. "This is great news! We'll be back in out own galaxy in no time, when they come out of hyperspeed, we can jump ship, and fly home!"

"That's not good." Xander butted in. "If what you say is true, then they will have more access to technology to assimilate. We have to destroy them before they get too powerful. I personally do NOT want them to come back here and would prefer that any and all information they may have collected on this area of space not get out."

"He's right." Sam agreed. "We can't let the bugs get a foothold in both our galaxies. These things are relentless. Even the Asgard haven't been able to stop them. If they somehow manage to assimilate whatever technology he has, we'll all be done for."

"What about the self-destruct?" Jack asked.

"Bad news." Jacob said from the console. "I've been found and it seems that they already know their way around the Goa'uld systems. I'm locked out. The only thing I've been able to find was that something else is on this ship that's been giving them problems."

"That would be my friends." Xander replied.

"You mean that there are more of you here?" Sam asked, wide-eyed at the possibilities.

"Not exactly." The newcomer replied. He really did not want to give away the identity of his Technites just yet.

"All right." Jack spoke up. "Come on. Let's keep on moving while we figure this out! We got them on Thor's ship."

"How?" Jacob and Xander asked simultaneously.

"We destroyed the deceleration drive just before it entered Earth's atmosphere." Sam explained. "It couldn't withstand an uncontrolled reentry."

Jacob thought about it. "Goa'uld motherships use sublight engines to slow down after exiting hyperspace. If we destroy the sublight engines..."

"…the ship won't be able to stop…." His daughter continued.

"…and it'll crash right into Apophis's planet." Jacob finished despite Jack's worried look.

"Now, we would have to wait until just after the ship comes out from hyperspace, so the bugs won't have time to change trajectory." Sam said.

"We could try heading to the engine room." Xander suggested. "However, it would also probably be where most of these things call a command center."

"Can't we use C4 and lob it at them?" Jack asked.

"The bugs could disable the detonator before it could even go off." She shook her head as her mind raced. "We would have to PHYSICALLY destroy the crystals ourselves. A P90 at close range would do the job."

"That doesn't sound like a good idea." Jack said, a little pale.

"You got any brighter ideas?" Jacob snapped as they walked.

"I could do it, probably even better for all if I did." Xander volunteered. "It will allow you people enough time to get out of here safely."

"All right, here's the plan." Jack said. "One of us has to get the cargo ship ready, while the others go with you."

"Look…" Was all Xander was able to say before Jack cut him off.

"I don't know who you are or what you are." The human Colonel said. "It's not that I don't trust you, well, I don't really trust you. But someone has to watch your back and make sure you don't get assimilated. A Replicator version of you is NOT something I want to worry about in the future."

"Fine." Xander gritted his teeth, he already had backup in the form of his Technites. He just wasn't so sure SG1 should meet them at this time and place. He had already asked Digit and company to make their way discreetly to them.

"Okay, Jacob, you go ahead and get it ready." Jack commanded the blended human Tok'Ra then looked back towards the armored figured. "We're right behind you tin man, let's go see the wizard."

"Funny." Xander replied out of habit to the famous quote. "The deck plating is colored gold, so our way is paved appropriately."

That comment got him stared at by all those present.

"How the hell do you know Wizard of Oz?" Jack asked in suspicious surprise.

"We travel widely." Xander replied, abashed at his slip of the tongue.

"So that WAS you." Sam stated, her own suspicions confirmed. "You were the one who showed up to help us rescue Jack and Teal'c in the runaway glider. Who or what are you really?"

"What the hell are you guys talking about?" Jacob asked, confused. "You don't mean that he's the one who helped pull our bacon out of the fire that time right? But his armor looks different than this one."

"Yes, that was me, but I've upgraded. For now, that is a tale for another time." Xander said tersely. "Your chance for survival dwindles the more this conversation lengthens."

"He's right." Jack said. "Let's go."

Jacob nodded. "It's gonna be tight, guys. You have about thirty seconds to get from the engine room back to the cargo bay. Good luck!"

"Just keep it running!" Jack yelled as they ran their separate ways.

-0-0-0-0-0-

"Ow crap!" Jack exclaimed as they all stared at what greeted them in main engineering.

"What the hell is that?" Daniel's voice slightly rose about an octave higher than normal as he took in the sight of one huge Replicator that dominated the room inside. He also noted that there were a lot of the regular sized ones also all over the place.

"That…" Jack said. "…is a HUGE bug."

Xander finally understood what the Technites had been trying to tell him on the way over and groaned. So much for trying to keep the Technites a secret for now, he would need their help for this.

"That would explain where all the power was coming from." Sam guessed, stunned at the size of it.

"Let's not wake it." Jack whispered.

"Ok." Sam adopted the Colonel's tone and pointed. "That's the control panel."

Sam walked with exaggerated caution as approached the panel and started to take each one she wanted out and made her way back to them.

"We ready?" Jack hissed.

"Wait for it." She answered.

"All of you get behind me and start running." Xander ordered as he raised both palms and aimed at the console while he sent a silent signal to the Technites who had assembled outside under cloak to help the humans on their way out.

The large Replicator "Queen" woke up the moment a shudder ran throughout the ship as it dropped out of hyperspace. She took one look at them and started shooting the smaller ones in their direction.

Xander fired at the console and destroyed it. He then turned to face an angry queen and channeled a large blast through his chest repulsor along with ninety percent of the NPB's he had with him, blowing the queen to bits.

The loss of extra power caused the ship to groan and shudder even more.

-0-0-0-0-0-

"Go, go, go, go, go!" Jack yelled as they ran through the corridor, only to stop around a corner to see a contingent of strange looking Replicators uncloak and fire at the more familiar ones trying to box the humans in. A few actually shielded Jack from weapons fire.

"What the fuck?" He said, confused. His words startled Sam as she heard him swear when she and Daniel ground to a halt behind him.

"They're with me." A voice behind caused the team to turn and see a smoking, floating, armored figure.

Xander had just about exhausted his current supplies of NPB ammo and the overload of tying over ninety percent of the Repulsor through his chest uni-beam in a confined blast caused the armor to vent excess energy as steam. The automated systems in his armor was already recharging and replenishing the ammo as fast as it could.

"Battle Formation Gamma!" He shouted to his Technites as they surrounded Xander and SG1 in a protective cocoon while they drew the Replicators' attention.

"Guys!" Jacob's voice broke through their com channel. "We gotta go! NOW!"

"Dad!" Sam replied. "We're coming up to the cargo bay, but we're stuck! Can you ring us over?"

"I'll try." Was the reply. "Sam! There's too much interference!"

"Dig, Persat!" Xander shouted above the roar of weapons fire. "Confine their signal and help them with the transport."

Digit and Persat complied as the sound of a ring transport took SG1 to safety. When the lightshow died down, Xander viciously grinned now that he and his Technites faced the remaining Replicators alone.

"Guys?" He addressed his companions as he noted that his armor had finished recharging. "Let's show them why they're going to become an endangered species."

The Technites growled in anticipation. As one, they all opened fire on the Replicators.

Above the din, one could almost hear strains of a Metallica song as Xander and the Technites literally went "Heavy Metal" on them.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Back at the cargo ship, Sam noted with worry as the bay doors started to close.

"They've overridden our control panel." Jacob said.

The doors almost closed in on them until it was suddenly blasted open from outside. Once debris from the former cargo bay doors cleared thanks to the sudden vaccuum, they saw a smaller shape loom from beyond the ship.

Calmly pacing the larger ship on its descent was a smaller craft that just looked like the one the armored alien rode on the first time they saw him.

Behind them, an explosion blew the doors that led into the ship wide open as Xander flew out of it with his victorious Technites and met up with SG1.

"What's the hold up? What the hell are you guys still here for?" Xander yelled as he patched into their communication system. "Get going!"

"We're going, we're going." Replied Jacob as he stabilized the craft and exited the bay with Xander right behind them as he and his Technites docked with the Halcyon. Together, they mustered enough speed to clear the larger, doomed spacecraft.

It would be a while before any of them realized that the "alien" had been using Earth-type speech, phrases, and mannerisms from the time moment they met until he left.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Back on the bridge, Apophis screamed in impotent fury as the replicators surrounded him and crawled over his personal shield. The last thing he saw before he was completely covered was the viewscreen that showed the planet Delmack as it literally rushed up to meet him.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Xander bid his farewells to his fellow space adventurers after an hour of flying with them. The young engineer opened a personal fold corridor much to the openmouthed shock of those present and disappeared into fold space. Let them go crazy in guessing his flight plan. He knew that the Tok'Ra would see to it that SG1 will get home safe, so he left them.

Allies though the Tok'Ra were to the human race, he was still leery of them. That and he didn't miss the obvious gleam in the bonded human's eyes when he was told that he took down the Jaffa contingent that had been after them with ease. He was not all too willing to share Iron Tech with just anyone, no matter what until his trust had been assuaged.

Besides, he'd been gone from Earth way too long. He had other obligations to fulfill that were just as important as saving the universe from power-hungry worms and rabid versions of techno-broods.

He was on his way back home, hopefully, with no more interruptions.

-0-0-0-0-0-

TBC

-0-0-0-0-0-

A/N: Whew..... I am NEVER going to try and set a deadline on when I'm posting another update again. I knew I was asking for it when I was the last one to get the flu bug in my office thanks to my caring office mates. I redid this chapter almost ten times because I kept scrapping it. Sneezing like a jacked-up hyena doesn't make it any easier either, as evidenced by almost a dozen rolls of what used to be paper towels littering the floor. I couldn't stay home, so even if I was under the weather and still able to be mobile, I went to work. Let me know if this chapter pass muster, any errors will be fixed on the fly again.......


	24. Chapter 22

XANDER HARRIS: THE IRON TAU'RI

By:"Gunsmith3000"

Started 5-19-08

Completed: ?????

Disclaimers: Nothing belongs to me other than this insane idea I have that just won't let go. Iron Man belongs to Marvel, Stargate SG1 belongs to MGM. Buffy belongs to Joss... blah, blah

Summary: Xander goes as one of his favorite marvel comic characters, but gets more than he's bargained for.

-0-0-0-0-0-

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DESTINY: SHAKEN & STIRRED (and probably thrown out the window)

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-0-0-0-0-0-

The battered, forgotten hulk had seen better days. The former cutting edge killer stealth satellite that had played a part of the silent warfare during Russia's cold war era drifted lazily across the fringes of the termination line where Earth's atmosphere was closest to space. The object's orbit decayed by a few more meters as a larger piece of its hull groaned under the impact of the annual meteor shower it had strayed into that normally happened every now and then.

It finally lost the battle the accumulated impacts that had besieged it over the years as the latest shower sheared off the deadlier part of its body. Now exposed and free of its heavier burden, upper part of the tattered hulk started to fall down faster as it joined the rest of the meteorites on their annual plunge.

While the one that held the missiles that fell took a difference approach to Earth as it armed itself.

-0-0-0-0-0-

"Mission control: this is space shuttle Ulysses, we're about to start up World Eye One and will be homeward bound with an ETA of two hours." Commander Jeffrey Tracy said as he spoke to Houston Mission Control, broadcast live via CNN as the world's first joint effort on an international exploratory satellite more powerful than the Hubble telescope came online for the first time. "I can also see a minute meteor shower off the starboard side above Washington, any guys wanting to wish on shooting stars may as well start now."

"This is mission control, Ulysses, we are receiving your signal and World Eye One's clear as day." Mission Control at Cape Canaveral responded. "You are cleared for two-hour window for re-entry, good luck."

Thumbing a secure line, Jeff cut the live feed in the cockpit and diverted the cameras to follow Dr. Erma Whitcomb who was outside. The fellow astronaut was one of the premier engineers who worked on World Eye One before it left the drawing board, she placed in the last of the "other" hardware that the new satellite needed for full operation. Officially, it would do a similar job like the Hubble Telescope, but unofficially, it would be part of the SGC in terms of defense to detect, if possible, any incoming spacecraft not of Earth origin with longer real-time ranged transmissions.

"Mission control, this is Ulysses." Jeff spoke on a private channel cut off from the CNN news feed that documented the event. "Are we clear from the SGC? No other birds watching before WE1 comes fully online?"

"This is mission control to Ulysses; SGC just gave the all clear." They replied. "Skywatch 1 has been recalled and under cloak. They've been watching you all this time just in case. They reported no other outside encounters within range of you and the new satellite other than the usual meteor showers way out of your range. You are green for full satellite start-up."

"Acknowledged, mission control, we are proceeding with full start-up of all systems." The lead commander of the space shuttle Ulysses replied as he signaled Erma to light up the hidden extras inside the new satellite.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Erma smiled within her spacesuit as World Eye One came online in its full glory. Thanks in part to some of the new technology developed by Pal-Core with their use of holography, they were able to adapt part of Pal-Core's designs into the creation of the world's first multi-function, holographic-imaging space telescope. Its more advanced technology would work alongside – and maybe replace – the older Hubble telescope to map the stars. While it did that, it would also serve as something close to an early warning device that, in theory, would help detect any incoming alien craft as far as the planet Pluto with only less than thirty seconds of real-time lag between image capture from that distance. They were hopeful that they could narrow the lag down to almost nil in the future, but so far, the alterations they made to adapt Pal-Core's designs worked better than they anticipated.

With the startup a success, the spacewalk team led by Dr. Erma Whitcomb closed up the final connectors to leave the new satellite running non-stop for the next five years, baring the accidental space collision or routine maintenance. After each sounded off on the final system checks, they slowly jetted their way back towards the space shuttle.

Mikhail was the first to notice that something was wrong. He brought up the rear of the five-person team and thus was the first to see the old, battered Russian stealth military satellite leftover from the cold war days as it drifted far above them off-course from the unexpected meteor shower almost in two pieces. Finally, the aged machine finally "cracked" when a larger piece of the meteor shower barrage passed through it. The larger, heavier mass that held at least two satellite killer missiles were now headed their way.

He wasn't worried at first because he thought it would drift off into space, but something must have jump-started the old systems on board and caused the antiquated missile system to activate in error, and instead of floating aimlessly out into space, it rapidly approached them with deadly intent as the warheads inside came alive just after the boosters did.

Eyes wide in terror, he shouted into his com gear in both English and in Russian to his teammates as he tried to warn them of the incoming disaster and tugged at the tether line that connected them to each other and to the ship.

Mikhail swore loudly in his native tongue, it was already too late.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Back on Earth, JARVIS accepted the incoming protocol along with SG1 the moment the satellite came online. It was through him that they were able to adapt the design specs for the Pal-Core holo cameras into their new long-range imaging satellite, and such as it was, JARVIS was the first one to notice something peculiar on his own hidden scans.

It was a "ping" signal that suddenly appeared from just a hairsbreadth of one of Pluto's moons. The signal carried an automatic ID trace that said "Halcyon". In cybernetic astonishment, the AI quadruple-checked the ID through various means before it sighed out in electronic relief.

Xander was on his way home. Then the AI metaphorically blinked at the next coded transmission. His creator had projected an ETA and the AI was amazed that the Halcyon's speed had somehow tripled from its original design specs. Something else puzzled the huge Earth-based AI though; what the heck are Technites?

JARVIS's attention returned to the data from WE1 and noticed with dread, the drama that unfolded close to the newly activated satellite. A drama that was also broadcast live everywhere in the world on any TV tuned to CNN and it was too late to halt the signal.

Once word got out, everyone started to turn on their respective sets and watched an event that would be the herald of a lot of changes.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Just barely a few yards away from the Ulysses and WE1, Jeff watched them as they slowly made their way back towards the shuttle. He noticed that the Russian astronaut that brought up the rear end of the team waved one of his hands wildly while his other hand kept tugging frantically at the tether line get their attention when he saw it himself as it slid into the viewing range of his shuttle windows. A very large piece of stressed metal from an old satellite he thought of as defunct before had apparently broken off from its parent body, and started its downward plunge towards terra firma as the outdated missiles within it misfired. Jeff watched, helpless, as the outdated weapon of terror headed for the team on its final trajectory towards Earth.

Like Mikhail, Jeff hailed his teammates to warn them, and wished that the damned shuttle had some minor defensive/offensive capabilities. As it was, he could do nothing to halt the deadly debris from reaching them.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Erma noticed too late the reason for Mikhail and the other's frantic communications as the debris came up on her blindside while she was looking in the wrong direction for the object at the worst possible moment from their frantic communication.

The debris struck the tether that connected the team to the shuttle and sliced through the line closest to Whitcomb. Excess oxygen vented into space as the astronauts started tumbling off course from the impact. Two of the astronauts were unconscious from the result of its impact in passing.

The remains of the damaged satellite wasn't finished as a jutting strut from tail end of the debris snagged the line that held unconscious team leader and dragged them all into Earth's gravity well on its way down.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Erma woke up to the feeling of intense heat. At first, she thought that she had overstayed at the beach again until the sensation of some sort of pressure by something from behind her got her attention. She opened her eyes as pressure built all around her, no longer just from behind, and screamed as she and her teammates continued to free-fall to their deaths.

Her scream stopped abruptly as an armored hand seemed to materialize as if from nothingness and grabbed the trapped line that dragged them down along with the rocket-propelled debris. With a deceptively simple tug, the being yanked them free.

The whole world bore witness as a silver and black colored armored "thing" pulled them back into orbit towards the safety of the shuttle. In clear view of the new imaging satellite, they also saw a strange craft of unknown origin open up, and fired on the falling debris to hasten its destruction into oblivion.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Mission Commander Jeffrey Tracy ignored the incessant chirp of the cockpit's com tie-in to mission control in exchange for a frantic rush towards the open bay area as he watched the armored "alien" – for lack of a better term – through the bay cameras as it guided the dazed astronauts onto the deck.

Dr. Erma Whitcomb shook herself from her shock and managed to grab on to the alien before it could lift off, the instinctive need to touch something that should not be real overriding her inhibitions.

The creature in armor turned to look back and studied her in silence.

A voice that sounded like a dual-toned inflectionless robot echoed through their com channel came out in English.

"Are you…" It paused as it noticed that the bay doors had slowly started to close. "…all right?"

They noticed that when it asked the question, the singular slit across its supposed helmet glowed in time to the speech.

"We-we're fine." Erma stuttered. "Who-who are you?"

The being seemed to consider the question before moving.

"A friend." It replied, before it flew upwards to the strange craft that hovered above the payload bay doors.

Everyone watched it dock with the strange vessel and flew outwards into space before it disappeared, then it doubled back under a stealth field and entered the atmosphere at an angle above Canada.

Mikhail stared at the spot where the "visitor" used to be and shared a glance at the rest of his comrades. He saw the same amount of wonder and disbelief etched over their features.

His communications gear crackled to life as he heard their mission commander asked about their well-being as the payload doors finally closed.

-0-0-0-0-0-

JARVIS stared aghast once the drama was over. There was NO way to cover something like this up.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Back in Sunnydale, the Scoobies had gathered in the library for a meeting in regards to the Sisterhood of the Jhe when Cordelia barged in at a dead run as she screamed for them to turn on the TV set.

In the other part of town in Xander's Pal-Core apartment warehouse the others also saw the news broadcast. Their eyes never once strayed far from the wall-sized screen that showed what could be their missing friend as he saved the lives of an international team of astronauts on live TV.

"JARVIS!!!!" Janna Kalderash ground out loud.

-0-0-0-0-0-

JARVIS winced as a loud screech echoed all over the warehouse-turned-apartments and sent a burst transmission to his creator. The AI hoped that the magic users currently in the building would not immediately come down to demand answers from the AI. Its self-preservation programming immediately caused the AI to barricade its core processing room from whatever questions Janna Kalderash would ask him before Xander arrived.

Questions, the AI wanted answers to as well.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Military leaders all over the planet tied up all their communications lines as they tried to find out which country, and what agency had access to whatever was out there that helped those astronauts.

Those who knew about the inner workings of the SGC flooded the supposedly secret installation with an unending salvo of queries.

All through this, General Hammond wondered where in the hell, was SG1.

"Incoming off….." The familiar alarm drowned out the constant blaring of the base phones.

George Hammond didn't know which was the lesser of two evils today, but the Stargate and whatever was coming through was damned better than dealing with insane bureaucrats with questions he had no answers to. He downed what was left of his anti-ulcer medication and headed towards the gate room.

-0-0-0-0-0-

In Rome, the Pope called for an emergency session as thousands flocked to them after the news broadcast.

-0-0-0-0-0-

In England, the Watchers Council closed their doors and recalled all available research personnel as they started a search for any relevant prophecy for what was unfolding.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Outside of normal space-time, a certain cosmic being laughed his head off. The PTB's complained at the injustice as they were told NOT to interfere. Failure to do so will result in such dire consequences from which they would never recover, ever.

When asked why, their Creator gave them a two-word answer: FREE WILL

To them, that meant that the Boss now had a plan that overrode theirs, and as per Divine prerogative; the Boss wasn't talking about it

This made the cosmic being laugh harder when the committee that made up the PTB complained even further.

With a last chuckle, the cosmic being shook his head and left the PTB to their devices. He opened a portal and collected Angel from the dimension where he sent the former vampire off to for training. After all, with Xander back, things were certainly bound to get interesting.

He twisted view of the mystic mirror that he carried with him and took note of the time when the bonding between the ultimate grimoire and a certain boy-who-lived occurred close to a month ago. Yes, he thought, things are DEFINITELY going to be interesting in the times ahead.

He disappeared from the ether, the faint strains of a song on his lips echoed in the vast expanse.

"Times are a-ch-ch-changing..."

-0-0-0-0-0-

Xander was on an all-time paranoia high as he kept all his stealth capable systems active and ran them continuously the moment he entered the atmosphere. He cursed himself as he flew passed Niagara Falls. He chose the long way home on his angle of descent in case the SGC also monitored that little brouhaha in space.

He groaned louder when JARVIS tight-beamed an urgent message that told him that the whole wide world saw it live on TV.

How the hell was he supposed to know they chose today to launch a new and improved version of a space imaging real-time telescope that would soon replace the outdated Hubble? He'd been gone for quite some time, and the only thing on his mind at the time was to save those astronauts. He blamed the inner-Avenger in him, several of the Starks in his mind had been one. His reaction to emergency like that one was second nature to him.

That was the "good" news, too, he thought at the lives he saved. The bad one was that his friends also watched the broadcast as well and they wanted answers. Judging from the postscript the AI sent; the smart system implied that they were not above plying JARVIS with questions when they tried to storm the AI's core processing room only to find it under lockdown by said AI to keep his sanity intact from female bombardment.

The vocal record JARVIS sent of Jenny's scream that reached all the way down to the underground engineering and science complex was impressive. No wonder the AI instinctively locked down. Xander himself wouldn't want to get on the woman's bad side even with his armor on.

Well, he thought, maybe not till he could perfect a VERY good reproduction of Stark's Hulkbuster class of armor, but even that might be pushing it. Damn, but that woman had some serious pipes on her. Then he felt his face heat up when he remembered just how good her "pipes" were. He only hoped that there would be no more distractions on his way home.

It wasn't until the thought left his cerebrum that he realized he had jinxed himself, and as if by chance, a local police dispatch reported in on a hostage situation inside a bank mysteriously wormed its way into his communication gear. What was strange about the report was that a police sniper opened up on the suspect with a headshot, but instead of staying dead, the suspect got right back up and fired at one of the hostages as punishment for the sniper.

The young man bowed to the inevitable and changed course as he willed his armor to assume the appearance of an upgraded "Silver Paladin" once again. In for a penny, in for a pound, he thought. He wasn't about to let anyone who needed help suffer needlessly, not if he had the ability to help.

Besides, whatever can get up from a sniper shot to the head was definitely not human.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Gaius was not a happy hybrid demon, between the constant headaches his ability caused as he maintained his human form. The demonic hybrid was fed up with the human cattle that littered the bank floor. This was supposed to be an easy operation; grab the artifacts the wannabe demon in Sunnydale wanted without witnesses. One slight hitch and it all went to hell the moment a pure as snow stupid priest accidentally brushed past him to uncover who he was.

Fortunately for him, the priest died. Unfortunately, there were at least twenty witnesses, all human. Now he, along with all twenty – now, sixteen left – were trapped in the bank with the package in his hand, surrounded by human cattle, presumably on live TV.

To top it all off, some fuckoff sniper took a potshot at him. Thankfully, his kind could take a headshot. Even the full demonic members of his species were the few that could even actually survive a beheading. He shook his head again ever since he came back up and spat the deformed bullet out. Lead is lead, and they taste like shit.

"Motherfucking fleshbag." He said, then shot one the hostages in anger with the gun he stole from the dead guard. Damn Wilkins and damn his rotten luck that the stupid artifacts were inside a bank vault he relieved from its former owner whom he killed the night before.

There was no doubt the exits were covered, so he finished tying the rest of the hostages up and started a complex ritual circle that would allow him to teleport out of this mess using the hostages as its base energy source. He was passed the point of caring whether the idiot newshounds outside caught his vanishing act, once Wilkins ascended, these people were literally going to be on the main menu.

He used the blood from his latest victim and smeared the rest of it on his intended sacrifices, when an unaccented dual toned voice stopped him from completing it on the last one. He glanced in the voice's direction and found the last reason to his already fucked up day.

"You know, that's way too much power with way too many sacrifices for a teleportation ritual circle." A figure in prominent silver and with a dash of black armor declared from behind the farthest hostage while it undid their binding. "Unless you're planning to take a trip to another dimension, the closest thing you'd need that much force to batter your way in would be a warded Hellmouth."

"What's it to you?" Gaius replied as he scrutinized the interloper's armor. It was close to impossible to walk in unnoticed without making some noise - much less especially the way the armor looked like it was particularly heavy. "Knighthood went out of style long ago."

The figure inside the armor, mostly assuredly a male from what he could tell, shrugged. "Regardless of that inane comment, I will not allow you to kill these humans. Consider yourself under arrest."

"Human laws matter little to me." Gaius scoffed.

The sound of a vicious snarl entered the normally flat dual-toned voice from the figure. "Please, by all means, do try your best to resist." He said as he drew closer to his intended target.

Without preamble, the demonic hybrid shape-changer responded with a hammer-fist strike towards his opponent's head that launched the armored figure on a ballistic trajectory headfirst into the closed bank vault door. The impact was strong enough to cave said door inwards, the noise of the crash was loud enough to reach everyone outside without the need of microphone pick-ups.

All was silent after that as the nervous law enforcement officials outside tried to gather more information on the sudden turn of events.

Gaius's temper shortened even further with what he just did. When he unleashed his true strength, it caused the hybrid to loose control of his current humanoid form, further scaring the hostages as his original features melted back into place. He started cursing in his native language, and hurriedly started the ritual before anything or anyone else decided to butt in.

The ritual circle emitted a rich, deep amber colored light that also surrounded the hostages. Once the glow touched them, excruciating pain flared through them as the glow slowly ate their life energy.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Xander shook his head as the ringing in his ears settled down to a slight buzz. He cursed his own stupidity; he should not have taken in that situation lightly. Just because his current target LOOKED human didn't mean it had the proportionate strength of one. The armored engineer reached up and pushed the mangled vault doors off of him just in time as he heard someone chant in an unknown language. He shook his head to clear it of cobwebs.

The moans of pain that followed the chants a few seconds later cleared the cobwebs that clung to his head real quick.

He took a quick self-diagnostic scan with his system and found himself relatively in one piece. Other than feeling that his head felt what it was like to be the inside of a damned bell when struck, he was okay. He spotted the bank robber slash demon already in the glowing ritual circle while the hostages on the floor writhed in pain.

Instinct overrode caution as he blasted the demon's head clean off its shoulders. His jaw dropped when he saw that the main body was still upright and that the head on the floor was still chanting!

"Shit!" He cursed again as he fired his boot thrusters and launched himself towards his "targets". He grabbed the main body in one hand, and scooped up the head with the other, the spell cancelled the moment the main body was out of the ritual circle. He broke through the glass window, and rocketed out into the open sky where he threw both into the air before he let loose with two NPB rounds at each object.

It was overkill, he knew that, but without knowledge on what exactly he was fighting, he opted for full corporeal destruction. If the bastard somehow managed to survive a blast at the molecular level, at least it will be a long while before it could reattach itself.

He ignored the clamor of several law enforcement officials and news reporters that tried to get his attention and headed back into the bank. Xander came in and out of the bank several times when he airlifted the hostages to the waiting ambulances two at a time before he dove back in the bank one last time. He activated his stealth mode and exited via the tunnel entrance he made earlier on the way in that led to a large sewer drain.

Only when he was gone that New York's finest was able to unwind from their collectively stunned stupor to enter the bank for a post-op search of the crime scene, they found the hole Xander made but by then, he was already long gone.

Before the night was through, wild theories of an interstellar cop chasing an alien fugitive ran rampant on the news networks that were brave enough to put it forth. It wasn't long until a connection was made in regards to the incredible space rescue earlier that day and they used both sources to back up their claim on the "interstellar cop" theory.

It would have been funny to the young man when JARVIS kept him up to date. As it was, he tried to force himself to keep to a low profile. The urge to do some good with his armor became stronger because of his misadventures in space, and because of the split-decision rescue of the shuttle crew he performed before he even broke atmospheric entry. It just felt so GOOD, so RIGHT to be able to do help, it was the kind of rush his gestalt mind was accustomed to as their armored alter ego.

Xander thanked JARVIS for the updates as he stealthily sped towards California at just below the atmospheric terminator between Earth and space at mach three. His trusty AI spent the remainder of his time awaiting his creator's arrival and filtered through any new reports that were relevant to him.

-0-0-0-0-0-

The dark Slayer patrolled the last cemetery on her route, deep in thought. She aimlessly walked in no apparent direction while she tried to sort out a few things that kept popping up in her mind. To say that Faith felt at odds with herself for the past few days was an understatement. There were a lot of things about this town that didn't make sense. The moment she set foot in Sunnydale after hightailing it out of Boston thanks to Kakistos and her Watcher's demise at his hands, the strangest of things kept happening. Of course, she had touched base with the resident Watcher and his Slayer after their first accidental meeting, and every little odd adventure seemed to have snowballed from there. It surprised her that the Sunnydale Slayer had friends who fought beside her. The fact her Watcher even ALLOWED his Slayer to have friends boggled the mind.

Oh, her recently deceased Watcher wasn't the traditionalist sort, but she still adhered to the "limited contact" credo. While her Watcher gave her leeway to be sociable, she could not make deep connections to the point where it would endanger them all by simple association. Friends were okay, but she should never let them get involved with the darkness they fought on a regular basis. The less the demons and vampires knew of a Slayer's emotional weakness (i.e. friends/family/etc.), the better the chances their friends will live a long and blissfully ignorant life, emphasis on the "they will live" part of the equation. If something FUBAR'd that up, they'd make do and tell them, but not before.

Then her thoughts drifted to Kassandra who took Faith under her wing once they knew she was a Slayer. The strange black chick had popped up every now and then in armor to help the Slayers from time to time when it got too hot for them to handle. For some reason, more than a few demons wanted to come to Sunnydale to try their mettle against "The Valkyrie", as they started to call her, so far none succeeded. Even with that oddness, the whole town seemed to resemble some sick comic book reality whenever she was around in it. It got weirder when they told her someone else wore armor almost similar to the Kassie's before she replaced him, in fact, the original guy was the genius to have invented the damn thing. She dug a little more into that story and found out that the inventor of the armor was also one of their friends who had gone missing over the summer. The "missing" seemed normal until she found out the reason behind it, and it made it hard for her to wrap her mind around that piece of news. Oh, she could believe that dude was missing, simple fact that a LOT of people go missing in vamp and demon central, but not the fact as to why he was missing.

The reason that the guy was somewhere out in space was what drove her nuts. Come on, if space travel outside the galactic rim was possible with what they have right now, she'd be the first one to get a one way ticket out of Earth just to get away from Kakistos.

A noise from behind brought her out of her mental ramblings. Faith swore to herself, as usual when faced with something that troubled her, her mind wandered too much into la-la land. If her Watcher were still here, she would have scolded her brains out. The pang of her loss dug into her again until she savagely stifled it. From out of the copse of trees to her right, misshapen parodies of humanoid figures emerged.

Demons, her inner-Slayer mentally categorized them. Holy hell, she stared when she saw how many of them there were, and all she had with her was a stake!

They took one look at the dark Slayer and attacked.

Faith knew that she was seriously outnumbered. She ran for it and activated the SOS signal on the watch Kassie gave her. Thunder rolled across the cloudless sky as the chase began in earnest.

A few minutes later, they had her cornered in one of the seedier places closest to the more populated portion of town. With her back against the wall, she pressed the panic button one last time as she readied for the inevitable outcome and hoped that her mentor slash friend got to her in time.

"I ain't going down without a fight." She told them as she raised her fists and took a battle stance. "You guys are gonna have to work for it."

Before anyone could move, rapid-fire bursts of energy rained down from the sky and struck the demons on their rear flank going upwards as an armored figure descended upon them like the wrath of God. They never stood a chance.

One of them got a good look at their attacker and guessed (correctly) who had destroyed them.

"The Silver Paladin…" The demon managed to whisper the name before it died.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Faith let out a whoop of joy and called out to her friend. However, Kassandra's name died on the edge of her lips when she got a good look at her rescuer. Unless she was mistaken, the armored form was masculine in its outline.

The figure that settled down onto the ground a few feet from where she stood amidst the demonic corpses started to walk towards her. Upon close inspection, he bore little resemblance to her current mentor other than the color scheme of silver and black. A soft whine drew her attention away for a second and she gaped as she saw the strange craft that floated above them as it bathed the area with its floodlights.

"Its all right, you're safe now." The figure said.

"No way..." She thought as she remembered the dream that woke her up in the middle of the night close to a year ago that started her on the path of being a Slayer.

They stared at each other in silence until a new voice broke through their shared fugue state.

"Xander?"

Kassandra "Kendra" Rhodes, also known by her new moniker as "The Valkyrie" to the demonic population when she wore the armor, had arrived a few seconds late. Of all the things the Slayer-in-hiding expected to see when she flew out of the warehouse to rescue Faith, the sight of her AWOL boss doing it for her was not one of them.

-0-0-0-0-0-

- TBC -

-0-0-0-0-0-


	25. Chapter 23

XANDER HARRIS: THE IRON TAU'RI  
By:"Gunsmith3000"  
Started 5-19-08  
Completed: ?????

Disclaimers: Nothing belongs to me other than this insane idea I have that just won't let go. Iron Man belongs to Marvel, Stargate SG1 belongs to MGM. Buffy belongs to Joss... blah, blah

Summary: Xander goes as one of his favorite marvel comic characters, but gets more than he's bargained for.

A/N: I've played around in the BTVS continuity in this chapter and mixed some of their order in regards to Faith fighting the Greek freak.

-0-0-0-0-0-

-TWILIGHT ZEPPO, PALADIN DAWN-

-0-0-0-0-0-

Earlier that day:

The Xander LMD was having a rough day at school as he tried to emulate his creator, but was par for the course in making sure the ruse that he WAS supposed to be the real deal work. The only time he deviated from the norm was when those moronic jocks started to bully the geek squad. The Xander LMD barely reigned in his temper, though in truth, it reasoned that Xander's personality profile had already mixed with his own that he had to follow through. Unlike the original, before his enhancement by the Halloween spell, the LMD's strength far outstripped what Xander was before said changes.

He also stayed a little out of the way from Xander's friends to a slight degree. Ever since the cat was out of the bag a few months ago, the group had been leery of its continued participation, even during the slayings where his android strength was more than adequate. He still had to keep up appearances however, so they all made sure he was with them during social calls, but not more.

If he had gone further than the original program's intuitive nature before the Halloween incident, the LMD would have inwardly guessed that Buffy was more than envious of the android's enhanced strength and reaction time. Fortunately, the internal AI understood Alpha mentality and knew that the young teen felt threatened, but wisely kept silent and proceeded as if it did not know the reason for such behavior. Following the programming was after all its mandate to make sure everyone outside of core group bought the lie that he really was his creator.

Unfortunately, since the original's big confession via recorded video message when he disappeared caused a minor friction within the group. It was also one reason why he discretely watched the library as the others arrived for a meeting, sans him of course. Willow was the last to enter through the doors and he moved out of his hiding place and carefully slid his little finger underneath the closed entrance. A micro-recon drone released itself from said digit's fingernail and homed in on the conversation.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Gile's voiced floated from the far end of his office as he rummaged for a book. "…They seem fairly committed. The Sisterhood of Jhe is an Apocalypse cult. They exist solely to bring about the world's destruction, and we've not seen the last of them. More will follow."

He brought out the book in question and leafed through some pages. Once he found what he was looking for, he passed it to Buffy who took one look at it and made a face.

"There goes my night to relax." She muttered. "Say Will, have you seen the Xander-bot around lately?"

The redhead Wicca-in-training shook her head. "I saw him early this morning like you just to keep up appearances. Frankly, even after all this time, he sometimes creeps me out. Sometimes I forget he's a copy of Xander and whenever I realize that he isn't, it feels weird."

"I know." Buffy complained. "Ever since he fixed his pheromone thingy, even Oz can't tell the difference unless he's up close and personal with the damn thing."

-0-0-0-0-0-

The LMD smirked from where he hid, JARVIS made sure to do that first after they found out how powerful a werewolf's senses were in regards to pack mentality. They made the upgrades immediately, with an assist by the Kalderash via a spell to make it more convincing.

It suddenly registered movement behind him, barely three yards and closing.

"Hello Faith." He said without even turning around. "I believe they are waiting for you within."

The raven-haired Slayer shook her head as she stopped her stealthy in her approach and sat beside the LMD. "One of these days, X-bot…" She chuckled. "I'll sneak up on you yet."

"Not today you won't." He replied as he turned to face her. "How are you today?"

"Fine." She said. "Still a bit winded from the fight with Kakistos. Thanks for the help last night with you and K by the way. It's strange though, I got revenge for my Watcher that was more like a mother to me than my real one. It just feels weird to actually try to get that behind me that's all..."

"It's all right, Faith." The LMD smirked. "And you're welcome. Whatever the future holds, you will always have a place with us. More so when the creator gets back, I'm sure he will welcome you with open arms"

"He barely even knows me!" She hissed.

"He will."

Faith blinked at that. "How?"

"Through my memories." The LMD replied, but when he saw that the young woman in front of him was still clueless, he clarified. "Through a safe, non-invasive procedure, he – for lack of a better term – will be able to download my memories in regards to you and integrate them with his own."

"Say what!" She stared. "Won't that like, scramble his brain or something?"

"The human mind is a fragile, yet very powerful thing." He answered. "The creator is more than capable of handling it, what with all the other memories inside his head that are not his either. My memories are simply a trickle in comparison to the flood of all the knowledge he holds."

"So it's okay right?" She asked, the guarded look on her face punctuating the question.

"Relax." The LMD said. "It really is okay. Now go on in, I'm sure they're waiting."

The raven haired Slayer released the breath she held and smiled. "Thanks, I know it seems weird opening up to a bot – but you, Janna, Anna, and Kendra haven't steered me wrong even when you got to know me. So I'll take your word for it."

With a nod, she walked to the library and went in and found out it was a council of war with the Sisterhood of the Jhe.

Had the LMD stayed longer, he would have noted Cordelia Chase running into the library a moment later at top speed with a cry of "Turn on your TV to the news!"

-0-0-0-0-0-

Outside, the LMD tight-beamed a copy of the video to JARVIS to let him take over the surveillance as an early warning system built within to detect life form anomalies suddenly alerted him to a possible supernatural threat. The LMD turned and was stunned as he saw a zombie walking around in the school.

"This could get complicated." The mechanical clone said with worry as he scanned the copy of the school student list in his memory banks to compare it against the walking undead. "Since when the hell did Jack O'Toole become a zombie?"

-0-0-0-0-0-

The LMD followed the dead man walking at a covert distance, and took note of where and what he was doing. He took note of the various nebulous ingredients Jack O'Toole took out of his car's trunk as he transferred them to the front passenger seat. While he didn't see every single detail, he sent what he saw via burst transmission to JARVIS to posit a possible scenario the undead teen seemed intent on making.

The reply from the A.I. brought up at least three possibilities, one of which involved making more zombies. The zombie solution seemed to prove true when Jack O'Toole headed to one of Sunnydale's larger cemeteries.

The LMD followed.

-0-0-0-0-0-

The LMD parked the car one block nearest to the cemetery he saw O'Toole enter and successfully tracked the undead teenager to a couple of graves as it placed hastily made ritual sigils one by one into the mounds. Sure enough, the moment the mechanical clone got close to see what Jack was doing, the undead teen he followed started to resurrect one zombie after another where each sigil lay.

-0-0-0-0-0-

The mechanical clone blinked as it overheard the most confusing conversation ever coming from the walking stiffs. He followed them back to O'Toole's vehicle as they made to move out. The LMD dashed back to his own conveyance and stayed on their tail with his lights off, a part of him thanked his lucky stars his creator painted the vehicle he drove a matte black. He was nothing more than a shadow as he followed the zombies to another cemetery and Jack O'Toole resurrected a few more of his compatriots.

While the zombies arose, the LMD compared their partially decomposed faces to the known associates list in his system that JARVIS beamed to him and realized that every one of them died at least a month apart. All of them were friends of the lead zombie in question, Jack O'Toole.

-0-0-0-0-0-

In another part of the same cemetery where the LMD followed the zombie crew, Giles was frustrated, lost in thought from a botched summoning attempt for knowledge on the current danger they faced.

Giles shook his head as he muttered while he packed up the summoning ingredients. "There's something... different about this... menace, something in the air... The stench of death. We may all be called upon to fight when it happens."

With his head still lost in thought, he never noticed the activity a few mausoleums over as he walked back to his vehicle and drove back to the library.

-0-0-0-0-0-

The LMD wondered if his logic circuits were malfunctioning. It would certainly explain the reason why he still followed the zombies around while they robbed a hardware store. Those same circuits kicked into high gear the moment he was inside the store and took note of what was missing when they roared off.

They had enough raw materials for a homemade dirty bomb, and judging from the direction they were going, the most probable target was the Sunnydale High School. He dropped the effort of silently shadowing them further as he gunned his vehicle into high gear and sped after them.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Jack O'Toole was having fun now that he and his crew were back together. Unfortunately for him, that lasted until he heard the roar of another car right on his tail. They all turned and were stunned to see black automobile right up their rear end as it suddenly switched its headlamps on at them.

The LMD used one of the vehicle's more obscure options, he activated auto-drive mode and in one bound, leaped from the driver seat onto the hood of O'Toole's vehicle. He effortlessly ripped the roof off as the zombies stared at him stupefaction. The mechanical clone was about to confront them when he chanced a brief glance ahead and once again leaped off the car as it plowed into someone's fence and into their mailbox. His own vehicle had paced them via auto-drive and parked itself close by.

The mechanical clone shook his head. He had enough for one night and without further delay, made short work of the zombies before they could even gather their wits from the crash. Once he finished with them, he attempted to salvage the damaged fence and the mailbox when the surveillance drone he dropped off at the school emitted a wide-band screech as it exploded due to the irregularly high energy fluctuations. Said explosion caused a feedback on both receivers, namely JARVIS and the clone that dropped it off.

The last garbled transmission managed to record that a fight had already broken out in the library against some demons. From the look of things, they needed help since the explosion caused by the irregular energy spike wasn't theirs. He gathered the zombie heads into his own backseat along with the bomb parts and burned rubber towards the school.

He was barely two blocks from where he started when he saw something in the sky that bore a passing resemblance to his creator's Halcyon as it flew past him towards a different direction behind him. He wrenched his car into a one-eighty degree turn and gunned the engine after it.

-0-0-0-0-0-

The sound of screeching tires echoed in the suddenly silent lot they were in, Kendra, Xander, and Faith all turned to see a modified old-style Chevy convertible slam to a halt in front of them.

"Creator Xander?" The LMD said in surprise from behind the wheel. "Uh, welcome back, but we have a major situation happening right now."

"What is it?" Xander asked his android double.

"The surveillance drone I left in the high school library encountered anomalous energy fluctuations that were beyond its capacity to record and was destroyed." The LMD reported. "The last transmission indicated, however, a potential number of hostiles closing in on the area before it was destroyed by an energy surge."

"I can't catch a break can't I?" Xander said ruefully as he flew in the direction of the school. "Okay guys, let's roll!"

"Right!" They replied.

The LMD backed his car out and screeched out of the lot with Faith in it while as it took to the streets at ten times past the legal speed limits. Kendra's boot thrusters whined out of the area as well

"X-bot?" Faith asked her insane chauffer of the moment as they took a turn at ninety miles per hour. "Is there a reason why there are a few zombie heads in the backseat with their mouths duct taped shut? Should I ask where the rest of their body is?"

"It's a long story." The LMD replied. "The morons wanted to bake a cake."

"Why so harsh with dead dudes who like to cook?' She asked.

"They were going to build a bomb, Faith." The LMD answered. "That was the cake I overheard the lead zombie mention. My analysis of the situation led me to believe they were going to plant it somewhere in the high school."

"Oh." She said after a moment, and spoke up again when she saw something that caught her eye as they sped close to a familiar house. "Oh hey, didn't Mrs. Ledderman get a new mail box earlier today?"

"It's a long story." Xander's LMD replied with groan as they passed the object that caught Faith's attention.

"I can't wait to hear that one." The raven-haired Slayer smirked in response.

The "new" mailing container in question was now shorter by a few feet, and anyone could see that more than a few rolls of industrial strength duct tape were stuck around it to keep the dented metal box from falling off the broken post it stood on.

-0-0-0-0-0-

At the high school:

The doors that led to the Library busted open as Buffy flew out backwards and landed almost at the far end of the hall by the large main doors. A three-headed demon slithered through the doors the young teen came from in search for its prey. The blond Slayer got back up and charged the demon once more as she rejoined the bedlam that was within.

Xander's LMD and Faith arrived in time to see the older Slayer's headlong charge and rushed in to fight one of the Sisterhood in time as it rounded on Willow. The dark Slayer swung the Roman Gladius she appropriated from the LMD's car cache and swung it to cleave her target's head off its shoulders. The LMD jumped in and swung his own fist at another female demon, and felt the crunch of a caved-in skull from the strength of his impact. On the far corner, Giles attacked at the Hellmouth demon's flank with an ax as it tried to force itself out of the tear of the Hellmouth. In between ax swings, the Watcher recited the rest of the binding spell. Giles got batted to one side from one of the angered heads that Buffy distracted and left him dazed, unable to continue. The Slayer was faring a little better, but not by much as she too, went airborne again.

A loud crash alerted everyone as the ceiling caved in and exposed Kassandra and Xander as they wrestled more than a few of the Sisterhood's hired help on the way down while the Halcyon lay down covering fire from above them. Kassandra landed on top of one of the heads and let loose a concussive burst of energy that not only destroyed the demons that had dogpiled them, but it also fried some parts of the beast that was supposedly a hell god.

Xander didn't let the opportunity go to waste as he let loose a smattering of NPB rounds stripped of its full destructive capability at the fully formed demon and fried more than half of its demonically divine hide. He grabbed one of the damaged support struts that formerly held the roof and started to whale on it while he charged up the chest Repulsor weapon and switched to charge more to fire a beam of concentrated plasma energy towards its center mass.

"Warning!" His internal suit AI ground out. "Energy level reaching threshold limits! Release imminent! Danger to undersheathing at forty nine percent beyond tolerance!"

Xander slammed the strut he used as a sledgehammer through one of the heads that remained and screamed to his friends.

"TAKE COVER!"

Faith threw an unconscious Willow over her shoulder as she vaulted over an overturned shelf to hide under the fallen section of the roof nearby while the LMD grabbed Giles and rushed to another one as Buffy followed suit after it. Kassandra stood in front of them just a few feet from where Xander hovered and erected an energy barrier that she HOPED would cover them all from the blast.

He landed on a clear area before the dying creature and braced himself as his armor as control spires with stabilizers appeared on his back to help prevent a pushback effect from what he was about to do. He held his arms at an equal distance from his chest as an immense amount of energized plasma thundered through towards the dying hell god.

Having never fired the weapon inside an atmosphere at all created an interesting result. Not only did it burn through the demon thoroughly, it also burned through the wall and gouged a line along the parking lot and blew up the trash dumpster across the street before the beam suddenly stopped as Xander frantically shut the power. The sudden loss of violent energy to push him back propelled him over the air as his stabilizers overcompensated and he scrambled to right himself via maneuvering thrusters.

"Okay." Xander muttered inside the helmet. "That was kind of overkill when it's not a Goa'uld ship."

After a moments thought, he raised his helmet visor to allow him to breathe the air around him normally. "I seem to be doing that a lot lately. This armor's armaments are way too powerful planetside."

The armored engineer looked at the devastation and nodded to himself as he called on his Technites that lay in wait inside the Halcyon for help.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Once he saw that the matter was at his Technites' hands outside, he descended through the large hole his Technites had yet to fix in the roof to land in the midst of his friends again.

"Hi guys." Xander said much to their shock. "Long time no see."

A recently revived Willow couldn't take it anymore as the evening's newest madness wore her down the moment she thought it was over as she fainted again at the sight of what could only be her missing friend as he landed in front of them with a greeting gave her another shock.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Once they all settled down and Willow woke up again, they watched as Xander's new friends rebuilt the damaged sections at a breakneck pace. To the Scoobies, it looked as if they were watching the repairs on fast forward.

"Wow, I leave for a bit and look what you guys go through." Xander said, he had taken off his helmet earlier as he watched his Technites while his friends looked on in amazement at the way they went about the repairs. Willow even looked like she wanted an up-close and personal inspection when she saw Digit, to which the Technite leader objected and made tracks whenever the redhead drew near, nervous of what the human female wanted just by the unearthly gleam in her eyes. A high-pitched squeak told Xander that Willow changed targets and started chasing Persat instead.

"Well." Giles smiled at the young man. "Your sense of timing was impeccable tonight. We might have fared worse for the wear if you had not shown up and the battle might have literally brought the whole school down."

"So Xander…" Buffy said from her perch on a recently repaired desk. "How was the universe?"

"I take it you guys saw the news, huh?" Xander blushed.

Faith stared. "Geez dude, the whole planet saw you! That thing's been repeated in every major news channel all day!"

"We also saw that thing in New York." Buffy said with a grin. "Did you bring back any Gucci?"

Xander blinked. "What? Are you out of your mind? Originals are way too expensive!"

"Aw, c'mon Xan!" The blond Slayer pouted. "You're some super industrialist multi-billionaire mogul guy now; it should be pocket change to you."

Xander shook his head. "Look, you guys are all beat. We can talk all about it tomorrow or something. Hell, even I need some downtime."

"He's right." Giles said as he nursed the rather large bump near his temple. "Let's all get some rest. We can welcome him more without further duress once we're refreshed."

They all reluctantly agreed and went to their separate homes after the Technites finished their spot repairs of the damaged property. When the Technites were finished, even Xander couldn't tell that their part of the school had once been a warzone when they walked out of the school to survey their handiwork.

The last one to leave, Xander flew around the area for anything amiss and then flew alongside the Halcyon that had waited for him by the school entrance back to his warehouse apartment complex via the desert exit/entrance at a lazy gait.

"It's good to be home."

-0-0-0-0-0-

"ETA, ten minutes." JARVIS announced as Jenna and a very sleepy Anna waited for their missing boss.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Xander smirked inside his helmet at the welcoming committee that greeted him in the launch bay tunnel he specifically built for the mobile weapons platform dubbed Halcyon that had access to the desert. Anna had downed her third shot of black coffee beside her cousin and both stood imperiously in front of the bay doors that led to the passageway to Main Engineering. Their arms crossed over their chests and both were tapping their right foot on the floor. If he didn't know better, they looked like they were struggling between being overjoyed (by the damning twinkle in their eyes) to annoyed (by the equally damning tapping of feet), but couldn't make up their mind to stay on either emotion.

Kendra went on ahead earlier to her own entrance bay along with Faith while Xander had to make a detour and dock the Halcyon inside the bay that exited near the desert. A quick look around and Xander noted he had to make a few changes to the bay now that the re-modified weapons platform almost took up the entire space. He'd get the Technites to help with that later, he was glad he had the foresight to build the bay doors that led out to the desert bigger than normal and was adequate at the moment. He'd make plans later for something else now that he knew the Goa'uld were indeed aware of Earth. A modified Xander-style Quintjet maybe. If he had Lilandra here, he'd ask for a Shi'arian battlecruiser.

Once he finished the final docking procedures for the Halcyon, he turned to find himself face to face with two of the most attractively exotic looking women in his young life. This of course made him groan internally as the Stark Gestalt libido went into overdrive. It HAD been a while.

He dropped the Silver Paladin mode of his armor and the two women stepped back with a start. There was a LOT of obvious differences in his new armor than the one he had originally left in on his unplanned space adventure. It was enough that their face frowned with concern and apprehension, so without further aplomb, he triggered the release mechanism that kept his helmet shut on his face.

Their smiles returned when they saw Xander's weary face peek out at them from within the helmet, a few weeks growth of stubble evident on his face. Anna sent a telepathic nod of affirmation to her cousin that it was indeed Xander via her aura reading. Of one mind, they dropped the spells they were holding in case he was an imposter and enveloped him in a warm, welcome hug.

"Welcome home!" They said, and before he had time to relish in the feeling of up close femininity, both witches smacked him upside his armored helm with a chorus of "Where the hell have you been?"

"Been around." Was the enigmatic reply. "Are those tears I'm seeing?"

Both cousins looked at each other and looked back at Xander to answer as one.

"They're tears of joy, we hate job hunting."

Yup, Xander thought, he was home all right as he heard Kendra snicker beside Faith when they came into the bay to witness the act.

-0-0-0-0-0-

-0-0-0-0-0-

-TBC-

-0-0-0-0-0-

A/N: I am SOOOOOOO sorry for the uber long wait. To be honest, I have NO time to write at all with the insane schedule I now keep. When I do find the time to write, it comes out in spurts of phrases and paragraphs that I hastily jot down on my handy notebook and try to type them scenes in later when I get home (if I don't pass out from exhaustion first). This and the next chapter I am going to post in a few days are largely unbeta'd as I am rarely online.... again, any errors, I will fix from time to time.

PS. I also apologize if this chapter seems a little scatterbrained in some areas, I'm dead on my feet right now and will pass out after I post this.


	26. Chapter 24

XANDER HARRIS: THE IRON TAU'RI  
By:"Gunsmith3000"  
Started 5-19-08  
Completed: ?????

Disclaimers: Nothing belongs to me other than this insane idea I have that just won't let go. Iron Man belongs to Marvel, Stargate SG1 belongs to MGM. Buffy belongs to Joss... blah, blah

Summary: Xander goes as one of his favorite marvel comic characters, but gets more than he's bargained for.

-0-0-0-0-0-

-FIRST CONTACT-

-0-0-0-0-0-

After Xander got out of the armor, there were a few catcalls when they saw his almost painted-on undersheath/skin suit that showed an impressive amount of wiry muscle that he gained during his adventures in space. The catcalls died and laughter broke out when he began to wear his shirt and pants over it. Silence reigned after that when the undersheath melted into his skin and left him looking like he hadn't seen the sun for a over a few months, which he technically hadn't since he was mostly in armor most of the time or underneath the ocean inside Lilandra. Those times he was unconscious and held captive inside Loki's ship did not count.

"What happened?" Janna asked when they had finally sat down in the large warehouse apartment living room.

With a sigh, Xander told them everything. After three hours of him talking into the wee hours of the morning, they responded to his tale in kind and told him what happened while he was away. He'd have to corroborate with JARVIS in the business end of the news they told him while he stilled the urge to don the armor and knock some sense into a few of his old friends to stop acting like they were four years old.

Fate, it seemed, had idle hands. When no one was looking, it was bored and got creative. It was either that, or something spiked the air in the Hellmouth atmosphere when he was away. There may not be an Avengers team in this universe, but the Stark Gestalt within him felt that he was on-call twenty-four seven. He had half-expected to take a small downtime with his arrival to play catch up, not to dive back into work the moment he set foot back in the Hellmouth.

-0-0-0-0-0-

It seemed while he had gone AWOL, some of their old "attitude" in regards to the face value of who is who reasserted itself back to type. It was enough for the two Kalderash cousins to recall the LMD double of him and reprogrammed it to stay in the background and just go through the motions of going to school and back as his "friends" had taken to ignoring the damn thing when they knew it really wasn't him.

Except for Faith, that is.

Faith had arrived in Sunnydale with burden she carefully hid from prying eyes. Faced with a new unknown quantity in their midst, their attitudes started to tilt even further. Her arrival, according to Jenny, almost sent their local Slayer on a territorial power slide. Bad enough that Buffy didn't trust "Kassandra" the first time around, Faith popping in all of the sudden dug that sense of distrust even further. Their lone wolf personalities as Alphas clashed horribly. This got worse when the rejection Faith felt from the Scoobies was resolved when the two senior witches and Kassandra took the new wayward Slayer under their wing permanently. She fit in well with Xander's new group, much to the original gang's dismay. It was there that Faith began to trust them enough to explain why she had run to Sunnydale of all places.

During her first few months as the Slayer that replaced Kendra. Like Buffy back in Los Angeles, she had the unfortunate circumstance to run into a master the likes of Lothos: a vampire named Kakistos. Unlike Buffy, however, Kakistos was stronger than Lothos. She witnessed the murder of her Watcher in cold blood in front of her in a surprise attack, as agreed, if things had gone south, she was to run to Sunnydale for help.

With no plan, no clue, and unable to trust anyone, she ran. She had been running all that time as she dodged the steps of the master vampire's footfalls that she knew followed her wherever she went. When she finally got to Sunnydale, what she had found both overjoyed and filled her with fear. The local Slayer had friends and a family, things that had normally been scarce in her life. Fear won the first few months as she had clammed up tighter than an oil drum. It had taken a lot of effort on the former Jamaican Slayer and the two Kalderash witches' part to break into Faith's shell to let her come out of it and let them in.

Xander shook his head in disgust. Only children below the age of reason would get that worked up when someone started playing in their sandbox. From what Janna was able to observe, they also started a variation of the fray adjacent approach to Faith that they subtly did to him after the Halloween incident. While he was slightly out of the loop, they kept Faith in the marginal "loop" only when they needed extra help.

Later on, they grudgingly accepted the new Slayer, but with reservations. At least, Xander thought, they could learn to grow up even though the Alpha personalities of both slayers were sometimes a handful to deal with. It was only through the Kalderash duo that Kendra was able to control and tame her Alpha instinct long before Faith showed up. The former Jamaican Slayer was already used to Buffy and her eccentricities that Faith's appearance didn't affect her as much. During their heart-to-heart, the dark-haired Bostonian Slayer found out the truth about Kassandra's real identity. After that, the women took her under their wing as family, Anna even called in a council vote and inducted Faith into the Kalderash clan. Overwhelmed with emotion that they really did care for her, she welcomed it.

It was only a matter of time and Kakistos finally arrived in Sunnydale. True to form, he started to root around for his prey. Forewarned from Faith's story, they quickly, and personally saw to it that the last thing the cloven-hoofed vampire saw, was Faith's face before she rammed a power gauntlet enhanced fist through the master vampire's thick, bony chest.

Buffy never even got wind of it.

I should have made a detour and gone to the beach, Xander thought after he heard it. I heard Hawaii is nice this time of the year. It looks like too much drama occurred while he was out.

He ran a hand down his tired face as he yawned and announced to his companions. "It's late, so let's all go to bed and get some rest. As for the Scoobies, I'll try to see them when I'm well rested. I like the fact that you're all helping them in spite of your slight differences."

They agreed and left for their respective domiciles inside the huge warehouse-slash-development office-slash-hangar-slash-apartments.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Xander lay in bed, he thought about his unique position for the millionth time since "the incident". He was beginning to think that fate had somehow hoodwinked him into the permanent role of his alter ego as The Silver Paladin. The Stark gestalt in his mind acknowledged that Iron Man was a being of their creation for a time when ideals almost beyond the point of repair. Xander, along with every Stark version he had crammed into his skull was a different sort of animal whose ideals were his own. Iron Man was good for their respective universes, it would most likely be behind the shadows if he were to use that name here. While not worldly popular like the Superman, Batman, or Spiderman comics, Iron Man was still too recognizable for people to notice. The helmet style, the blatant red and gold paint scheme was too obvious. It seemed that "Somebody" was watching from on high knew that fact and gave him an "out" as it were.

If fate had somehow chose him to become a technological Paladin, a shining example of a new brand of justice and light against the darkness, then so be it. He already looked the part thanks to his error of rushing to Janna's rescue when he first donned the unpainted silver-toned mark zero unit; then he may as well add a few more touches to his new and improved Paladin mode thanks to Lilandra's help in creating him a new set of armor. He could probably add a few more things to it to really differentiate it from Iron Man.

Besides, don't Paladins use swords? Maces? War Hammers? Battle Axes? Xander went to sleep with the idea of cramming the Halcyon storage space with all sorts of melee weapons with a technological twist.

There was also the fact that his new space-age armor was too powerful and needed limitations while inside an atmosphere, as it was, he had the combat capability of a sentient nuclear bomb several times over. Left unchecked, it would become cause for some major concerns. Power like that could be easily abused, in helping them, he could also easily harm them as well..

-0-0-0-0-0-

"Where the hell is Xander?" Janna screamed in frustration, it was already close to noon. They had been looking for the young man in question when they realized he never exited his room that morning. He had already missed half his school schedule and it looked as if he would not make it for the rest of the day.

After their search topside yielded no results, they tried to enter the lower levels. They were denied key access, when asked why, JARVIS told them to check Xander's room again. They did, and upon further investigation, they all barged in and found a rumpled, slept in bed, same as when they walked in earlier. That was enough for the former computer teacher, hence her scream of frustration.

The others wandered into the room and Anna noticed a blinking green light off to the far wall that wasn't there before. She drew the group's attention there and everyone was surprised to find a private elevator that led into Main Engineering. Without a word, everyone climbed in and barely managed to squeeze into the tight space.

The ride down was slightly uncomfortable with four women holed up like a sardine can, it got worse when they arrived and the lift doors opened to the sound of loud rock music.

"Damn." Faith muttered, slack-jawed at the sci-fi geek environment she landed in when she got out of the lift. "Boy knows his Eddie Van Halen."

A few seconds of walking deeper into Main Engineering, they finally found their errant friend in front of the larger machining rig he had JARVIS build that could help create any weapon he deemed possible for his armor, including more armor as well. The current design he was working on via holographic drafting was a huge representation of an enormous bastard sword. They stopped to stare as it morphed from someone's overactive idea of overcompensation into another large object of equal significance: an ornate War Hammer. A couple of Technites they recognized from his impromptu introduction of them last night who they recognized as Persat and Digit were working on the actual material while Xander made a few more adjustments to the holographic test model.

"Xander!" Janna yelled as she grabbed the younger man's right ear and pulled, despite his protested yelp. "You're supposed to be in school!"

"Ow!" The young genius yelped in pain as he replied and turned down the volume by a sufficient level. "I sent the LMD in my stead. I had an idea last night and I wanted to see if it was possible."

"What could be more important than spending time with your other friends now that you're back?" Anna asked as she studied the changing designs of sword and hammer. "Aren't these weapons a step backwards to your so-called Iron Man motif?"

"As Iron Man, yep, they are. Unfortunately, I realized that he's too damn recognizable." Xander replied. "But as the Silver Paladin, I'd say they're part and parcel of the package. Besides, they're not normal weapons."

"Considering you are who you are, I doubt they'd be anything but." Janna said, intrigued. "So what are they?"

"A nano-molecular composite of Adamantium blended metal." The young engineer replied. "Think Terminator II's liquid metal guy: the base form of the object is a metal rod that's no bigger than the thickest defense baton available in the market. A pre-programmed activation sequence activates the tightly packed micro-blocks inside to change it into large two-handed sword or war hammer depending on the situation. Normally, I wouldn't have been able to do this with what I have and just go straight with making two weapons. But thanks to the Technites' inputs, it was possible."

Anna was impressed. "I take it by those runes you've managed to carve into both sword and hammer forms that you want us to enchant them? Where did you learn runes by the way, they look very complex. True rune weapon forging and empowerment was a secret art thought lost due to the fact that it was very dangerous in the wrong hands. They burned those books and banned them for a reason. Lucky for you, the Kalderash clan managed to hide theirs at great personal risk."

"One of my Stark memories was well versed in magic." Xander explained without going into detail on just which Stark it was. No need to tell them that one of the incarnations of his Stark gestalt was actually Lord Sorcerer Supreme of his universe. He didn't want them to think he had knowledge equivalent to Merlin, the Wizard – not "Merlin", the alien which he found out that both of them was true here. Both lived, both died, both became one person thanks to stories that blurred by word of mouth as time passed. The original one was an actual wizard that Tolkien slyly referenced, as the basis for Gandalf, and the other was Myrddin, the alien Ancient that took a hint and patterned himself after the famed Sorcerer to blend in better with the locals. The myth and legends of two separate "wizards" blended into one figure by accident. Spoken myths and legends passed down via word of mouth rarely stayed in the original context. Only when someone got the smart idea to write it all down did they get the wrong version up, by then it was too late. Of course, no one would believe that the more well known story that Sir Geoffrey of Monmouth published was the one history butchered up, and no one will know the wiser, at least not until they learn to read Alteran script from alien Myrddin's own personal library. A library, which Lilandra somehow managed to acquire in her many travels and dumped the info into Hal's memory banks. Though Xander wanted to set the record straight on some misconstrued mythological truths, the headache news like that would generate made him reconsider.

Maybe when humanity was not as divided and as close-minded as they were today, but for now, ignorance was bliss.

"Considering the situations I inevitably get into, those runes should be enough to make that thing nigh unbreakable and resistant to other types of magic used against it." Xander said as he drew up a closer look at the runes he incorporated into the sword and hammer designs. "If my calculations are right, they could even absorb some of the spells flying around and hopefully turn it back towards the caster. An added plus is that the whole thing can shrink and I can place that into a compartment inside my armor. Without the Technites' help, I would have ended up slinging that thing at full size on my back"

"Uh-huh." Janna replied as she looked over the rune work herself. "This could work. Wait here while we hunt down the ingredients. I assume there's another part of Main Engineering for spellwork and rituals that you haven't told us about?"

At Xander's nod, she shook her head and left to get them. "I don't even want to know how you were able to squirrel that in here, and I thought I'd seen everything in this place. Just what else have you managed to hide down here?"

The only answer she got in reply was an all-knowing smirk as the genius in question turned up volume of the rock music up to where it was before he was – in his opinion - rudely interrupted and went back to work.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Kendra glanced at Faith and was surprised to see her protégé look a little lost. "Don't worry." She said. "When the boss man gets an idea going, nothing short of a nuclear meltdown – or a naked woman – will drive him out of this room."

"My kind of guy." Faith replied absentmindedly, still nervous at creator of the LMD that she had gotten to know when she first arrived in Sunnydale. "Look I gotta go to the mall, mind if I use the bike?"

"Go ahead." Kendra smiled. "Let me know if there is anything we can do to help. Be careful out there."

Faith nodded and ran for the garage, thankful as always that her new friends really reached to her and made her feel welcome. While the same could not be said to the Sunnydale Slayer and some of her compatriots, at least her Watcher was levelheaded enough not to turn her away, especially now since help was sorely needed with all the demons coming into town lately that wanted a crack at them.

-0-0-0-0-0-

"Xander?" The intercom buzzed beside him as he went to work on the final touches on the mold for his new weapon.

"What is it?" The young genius barked back as he directed Digit to begin the nano-molecular bonding of the preprogrammed nanites into the alloy inside the enchanted mold.

"I've got a Major Paul Davies on line two." Janna said from her office. "He's been bugging us for over a week with requests from Washington to tour the place for an official government bid."

"I don't make weapons!" He yelled back while he calculated the flow of the bonding.

"Could've fooled me, Xan." She said.

"Well, not for any government, I mean." He clarified. "Iron Tech is a no-no, and you know that. You read the comics as much as I did. I don't need to give them another reason to blow up the planet when they already have enough alien tech in their labs. And by the way, JARVIS, keep me apprised on any new developments in the SGC."

"Aye, sir." JARVIS replied.

"They're asking about more refinements to the OS and want to know if you've made any upgrades to your holocamography for possible reconnaissance drones in the field." Janna explained.

Xander blinked, that was different, THAT he could work with. He could release an earlier version of a bulkier mini holo-camera prototype from stores. It was one of the models he used in the Zero unit upgrades, it was also well within the tolerance of something not too advanced for anyone to think otherwise. "Ok, tell him he can come by next week on Wednesday, I can personally show him around then to feel him out."

The young engineer shut intercom off and looked towards the far wall. A cache of orbital probes he had planned to send into space around Earth lay there, gathering dust. The probes were one of the few things he forgot to send up before he left for space in a rush. They were to be his eyes and ears as stealth satellites to help him protect the Earth for any signs of alien incursions.

Making a mental decision, he thumbed the intercom again. "Janna, hold any calls for me today, will you? There's one thing I forgot to do, and it'll take a few hours at best."

"I'm not some over-glorified secretary, Alexander." Janna's indignant reply was felt through the com line. "You're going out in armor, I take it?"

"Yep." Xander replied as he suited up and ran pre-flight checks for the Halcyon on a remote station that led to the desert launching area. It was time for some rest and relaxation while he went about and dumped some of his own personal probes to help him watch over his home world from any possible threat. If fate had indeed shoehorned him into this job, he might was do it on his own terms.

This is a different kind of funny, he realized in thought to himself as he flew upwards towards space once again under stealth. He used to want to laze about and not do anything at all that before all this. Thanks to his new experiences and to the amalgam of several memories swimming in his head through the Stark gestalt, for some reason, life gave him a rare opportunity to change and really try to make a difference.

He had finished stationing the probes by nightfall, Earth relative, and activated them. He took one look at the clutter of older satellites across the vast expanse that was the terminator between Earth's thinnest atmosphere and the black void of space.

It sure is peaceful up here, he thought. His eyes stretched across the stars to where he believed Lilandra's temporary home world would be. It amazed him that at what he had gone through in his wild sojourn around the universe.

"Space, the final frontier." He started to paraphrase a quote. "These are my voyages. To make sure the Earth doesn't blow itself out of existence before they can really get up here as a whole."

"Sir." JARVIS's voice floated in the com. "That was a very bad mangling of Jim's Kirk's famous opening lines."

"That doesn't make it any less true." He retorted to his smart-ass AI. "Change is coming. I can feel it."

"Indeed." JARVIS replied.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Somewhere in downtown Los Angeles several hours after nightfall, a portal blasted open in one of the city's abandoned alleys. Over a dozen people rushed out, all clad in rags, covered in dirt and soot. The growing number of people that came from the portal slackened until a surprisingly fit man with almost waist length hair came out. He was pale and covered in non-human blood. A battered sword hung limply by his side as he grunted in pain.

The sword-wielding stranger lifted his head and they could see golden eyes peeked below the obvious-but different-looking ridges as he growled for them to flee. The crowd hesitated, feeling strangely obligated to help the strange vampire because it helped them escape the hell dimension that they had come from.

They changed their minds when they saw one of their giant jailors making a last ditch effort to get back at them coming out of the portal and ran like hell. The vampire saw this and swung his sword and neatly slashed the thing's head off and kicked the rest of its body back into the closing portal.

"How long was I in that hell-hole?" The dirt-covered vampire growled at thin air.

"A millennium, or a moment?" A disembodied voice only he could hear replied. In the vampire's mind's eye, he saw the unrelenting smirk of the being who had introduced himself as Eternity. "I stand outside the rim of time and dwell not in past or future ages; there is only the now, Angel. What matters is this: you are back. Maybe a little further than where you're supposed to be, but congratulations all the same. You're home."

Angel, the hybrid vampire with a permanent soul heaved a heavy sigh of relief. Only to stiffen at the being's next words.

"By the way, never lose your situational awareness in a new area." Eternity said. "I taught you better than that."

The former Aurelian vampire never saw the tranquilizer dart that hit him on the right shoulder.

"Bastard." He muttered as blackness took him while the last thing he saw was a pair of military boots as it made its way warily towards him.

At the same time, a signal thought to be lost started to alert JARVIS of another potential situation.

The vampire with a soul had somehow returned to this reality.

Xander ordered the AI to watch out for further anomalous reading with a "wait and see" approach.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Roughly one week later, still unconscious due to the drugs, the vampire hybrid's prone form was dumped right back into the alley where they had abducted it.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Christine Joy was NOT having a good day. She was late for work earlier that day, thanks in part to her busted up alarm clock, and other was the fact that she had thrown out her most recent boyfriend because he couldn't handle her lifestyle as a journalist. To make her day even worse, her boss decided to send her out with a few other journalists from rival papers to the research station situated near a frigging volcano. A supposedly recently active volcano, they said.

"Can we get out of here now?" One of her more nervous colleagues asked for the tenth time. She partly agreed with the whiney man. The whole area was a little warmer than it should be for the current weather, active volcano notwithstanding. Already, she saw that some of the scientists traded worried glances. A few of them even started to pack in some of their more mobile equipment. The earth beneath them suddenly rumbled and the plumes of smoke that came from the volcano got heavier. Instinctively, they KNEW something was about had happened as the far-off black cloud loomed closer and closer.

The signal for bedlam was the fact that one of the scientists was overheard to have said, "This doesn't make any sense, its happening too fast, the seismic readings are off the charts! Walt, tell the others that we have to evacuate!"

What followed was a concerted mad dash for their respective vehicles – cars and helicopter alike. Christine stared at the sky before she got into the large CH-47 Chinook that brought most of them here. The black-gray mass that they thought that was still far away approached them rapidly. It ran over the helicopter as it barely cleared the largest makeshift building on the site and plowed it into the hastily abandoned research station.

The last thing she could remember before she passed out was the suffocating darkness that followed after their screams finally died out.

-0-0-0-0-0-

She awoke to the muffled sounds of metal banging against metal and she remembered where she was and what had happened. She gathered herself and tried to look around in the pitched darkness, the stale air inside the downed Chinook made it hard to breathe. However, in the darkness, she was able to hear that a few of them also came to as evidenced by the moans and groans of pain that rose steadily inside the craft.

She gave out a sudden yelp as the entire craft itself lurched and let out a loud metallic groan. The entire transport shuddered again as a high-pitched whine filled the air around them, then she felt that the whole transport being slowly lifted upwards!

Christine chose to ignore the panic that grew around her as part of her mind tried to process the unthinkable. She glanced at the cracked, but unbroken window beneath her when the Chinook tipped over on her side when it settled. The dirt and ash fell away from the window as the entire craft continued to lift off the ground. Light started to filter in as more dirt and ash fell from the craft on its way upwards, it was only then that she noticed something strange attached to the left side of her window. It was a silver-like metal head, and it swiveled to stare right back at her.

I'm hallucinating, she thought. I'm still unconscious and probably dying. There was no way outside of her fantasy that a knight in shining armor had just arrived to rescue her. If she was indeed about to go, she was at least thankful that she got to go with a nice childhood fantasy.

If this was a fantasy, the more lucid part of her mind asked, why did she hurt all over?

-0-0-0-0-0-

Xander had gotten wind of the incident from JARVIS earlier while he was at school and faked an upset stomach to run into the bathroom and sneaked out of the school grounds while his LMD replaced him. He knew it would take several hours, maybe even days, until a well-organized rescue operation could get to those trapped under the eruption. A few moments later, he and his Technites on board the Halcyon, blasted towards the site.

From the view one of his new probes provided him from above, the area around them was almost inaccessible by land vehicles without it being a major undertaking. Soot and ash were still flying around in large quantities, but it was not a problem for him and the Halcyon. A few of his larger Technites came along with him on this mission and some of them separated to broaden the search for survivors whilst Xander's main target was the largest piece of metal easily found: the downed CH-47 Chinook that crashed into the only building for miles around the site.

With the help of the Halcyon's own larger repulsor cannons, he went to work and shifted ash and debris away from the targeted area. The work was grueling because the volcano was still in the process of spewing everything out, and the window of opportunity for those trapped within the buried craft had narrowed down with each passing second. Once Hal was able to clear a sufficient amount of the ash and soot from the wreckage, he went to work on the lava that was on its way down while his creator slowly lifted the badly damaged craft.

The re-modified weapons platform used a variant of the repulsor technology and energy shielding to stave off the flow of lava away from the area while a few Technites gouged a deep trench in order to change its course with the same substance they used to shore up the underground city a few galaxies away. Those with heavier shielding went straight towards the volcano and sought a way to prevent it from further doing damage.

Xander situated himself underneath the tipped end of the damaged craft and slowly lifted it up, wincing all the way at the groans and bangs of the stressed metal. He suddenly felt eyes on him. He turned in the direction he thought it was coming from and saw a female face that peeked out from the cracked window nearest him. He knew that Digit was out there amongst the team in and around the volcano, so he sent a request to Persat to find a way inside the craft and supply much needed oxygen. Judging from the glazed look on the face on the window, air was becoming more than just a problem.

"Sir." JARVIS's voice crackled inside his helmet. "I've intercepted a communiqué that was broadcast blindly that had you as an intended recipient."

"Play it." Xander replied as he gritted his teeth. Even with the enhanced strength the armor provided, the entire weight of the craft he held aloft was astounding when filled with people and whatever else they crammed inside it, he couldn't move faster even if he wanted to, the whole thing might fall apart and kill the survivors inside while en route. As it was, he hoped to manage a top speed of about forty miles per hour as he tore through the ash clouds, in his opinion, at a snail's pace.

"…to the unidentified craft and pilot on site." The voice said over the helmet speakers. "We have alerted and prepared the nearest hospital for your arrival. Rapid response teams have mobilized to assist you in any way we can. The coordinates are…"

Xander scanned it as the onboard companion node AI JARVIS installed in the armor processed the data and plotted its course with ETA. He urged JARVIS to fashion a reasonable, but scrambled reply and concentrated on getting there as fast as he was able without ripping the wreckage apart. When Hal saw that his creator was clear, he let go of the lava that he shielded back to let Xander take off safely and released the cleverly concealed large mechanical Waldo arms to aid his creator in getting the craft safely towards the hospital in the distance. The re-modified smart weapons platform refocused the energy shield he used on the lava and trained it tightly over the damaged Chinook to ensure its survivability along the way.

Both man and machine carefully made their way towards their destination at an agonizingly slow pace.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Mountain View Stars Hospital was awash with chaos as trauma teams frantically prepared for the worst. Ever since they got the call less than an hour ago, they recalled every available staff they could contact. A few hundred military personal also arrived and helped clear their parking lot to make way for whatever was coming. They were vague about it and even drove off a few of the press that weren't with the group that went to the volcano. A few of the more foolishly determined newshounds with cameras hung back a quarter of a mile out in case anything happened.

Sure enough, some started to notice a speck in the horizon that approached the hospital from the direction of the volcano. The general in charge of the mobilization looked through his binocs and felt his jaw drop, the cigar he'd been chomping on the last fifteen minutes landed on the asphalt.

A hushed silence fell across the hospital grounds when they could now see what he had just seen through the binoculars.

The mirror action of dropped jaws graced every face in and out of the hospital, from military personnel, doctors, and civilian patients who were able to look through the window. More than half, soldiers included, crossed themselves at the sight of a dust covered silver figure and a strange aircraft with robotic arms lift/escort the damaged Chinook to them.

General Landry recovered quickly and noted to his dismay that most of his men were as dumbfounded as he was, and more than a few stayed that way. Decorum people, he thought, we're the goddamned military. He opened up on the radio and ordered them to make way for final approach. As if by magic, the soldiers snapped out of their stunned daze and some of them lit up flares to mark the landing area while the rest stood at the ready with the trauma personnel. The ones that lit the flares brought out strong directional lights and went through the motions to guide the being that held the damaged helicopter aloft in as if it was landing on an aircraft carrier.

-0-0-0-0-0-

The SG-1 team scrambled into the briefing room to watch the wall monitor, they have been waiting for news ever since word came through that someone they met "out" there had somehow managed to be on Earth and started to help the populace out in the open. They had just recently cured Teal'c of Apophis's brainwashing via the combined use of Bratac's ministrations and the new holographic chamber only to come out of it with news from Hammond that their new extraterrestrial friend made very public waves on Earth.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Xander saw the hospital without his armor's aid clearly now, and noted both military and hospital personnel milling around the cleared parking lot that was large enough to accommodate them. He unnecessarily followed the men waving the beacons towards the ground as he gingerly descended with care. Once down, he flew to where the mangled rotors were and ripped them off to make a large egress. Trauma units moved into place immediately to help the ones still unconscious while some of the military people aided those able to move out on their own.

Xander was about to fly off when he heard a soldier still within the craft emit a loud oath. He landed back down and they made way for him into the damaged craft. He found that the woman who had earlier peeked out of the window couldn't get up because she was trapped between one of the seats that had come loose in the crash and that the space was too small for the rescuers to move out of the way.

He gestured for the soldier to step away and stood in front of the offending piece of debris, he grabbed hold of the wedged end and placed a hand on the stressed bulkhead. With muttered warning, he pushed the arm on the bulkhead outwards and the other that held the wedged seat towards him. They watched in awe as a loud screech of metal reverberated around them as the bulkhead twisted outwards and allowed Xander to free the seat that trapped the reporter within.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Christine watched in mute disbelief as the hallucination before her tore off the seat that trapped her and held out an armored hand towards her. Going along with it, she accepted and with great difficulty, staggered upwards. The obviously male armored being led her to the closest gurney and lay her down. He went to move away, but stopped when he noticed that she hadn't let go of him.

"You are safe with these people." Her knight said in a strange voice. "They can help you more than I now."

-0-0-0-0-0-

The young, armored genius spent several quick runs back and forth from the site to the hospital as he ferried several more survivors his Technites were able to find, cocooned in an energy shield of his own creation for safety that dispersed once they landed. So far, only three had turned up missing and neither Xander nor his Technites could find any trace of them.

Xander stayed a little bit more to see if he was needed, once he saw that everything was all right, he moved back to the wreck to move it out of the way but was stopped by a man with a General's rank on his shoulders.

"May I help you, General Landry?" Xander asked as he read off the man's name patch.

"We'd like to thank you for helping out on this disaster." Landry opened, and hated what he was about to say next. "But I've got orders to ask you to come with us for debriefing."

The armored being cocked his head to one side, unsure if he heard right. "I do not serve under your planet's government." He said loudly, shocking those present as he confirmed several outlandish theories they had of him being extraterrestrial.

"Who DO you serve then?" Landry asked, curious in spite of himself.

"You're world." Xander replied, amused at his own answer. That should let them stew over that one.

"I do not understand." The General said. "You said you don't serve the government, and if it's not, and not ours, whose?"

"I do not cater to any one government." Xander said as he lifted off. "I choose to aid your world."

"Wait!" Landry cried, but it was too late as both the armored visitor and his amazing craft flew out of range of anything he could muster.

"Damn it!" He cursed and turned to his 2IC. "Josephs, tell me that our boys with their eyes in the skies can track him."

"No sir, not even a blip." Josephs replied. "Not even our new bird up there can track him. We can see him and talk to him fine, but nada on the tracking once he doesn't want us to track him. Visual tracking is almost useless once he ups his speed beyond the normal range of what our boys could follow by eyeball. It's like as if he's a ghost."

"Ah hell, it was a thought." Landry sighed. It was a long shot anyway. That was one reason why they blindly broadcasted their message to him when they got wind of this mess. "All right, get our boys in there and see if we can salvage the flight data recorder as evidence to those bigwigs back in DC. At least we didn't go back empty handed."

"And the reporters?" Josephs asked and pointed towards the crowd lollygagging outside the established perimeter. Someone had to say it anyway.

"A bit late to think of a gag order when the cat's out of the bag, son." His CO replied. "Let's go."

"Look!" A voice amongst the survivors said as he pointed towards the direction where they had come from.

All eyes turned to see another miracle, the volcano, for lack of a better description, was "capped". The ground beneath them shuddered imperceptibly for a few seconds and was finally still.

"I'll be damned." The General said in admiration. "Not only did he rescue the scientists and the reporters, but he actually found a way to stop an active volcano."

He shrugged and led his 2IC off to the side for a more private chat, on his way out, he overheard one of the rescued scientists comment to his colleague.

"Damn, Virgil." The Asian scientist said to his friend as they gazed in the direction the black plume of smoke that was once the sign of an active volcano. "When that thing clears up, cleaning that site's gonna be a bitch when we're able to get back. And to think, that guy's probably the same guy who rescued your dad about a week ago."

Landry almost paused in mid-step, a thoughtful look on his face. He whispered to his second in command as they drew further away from earshot. "See what you can come up with the Tracy family while you're at it."

-0-0-0-0-0-

Xander flew over the destroyed area on the Halcyon and picked up the rest of his Technites as they finished "capping" – for lack of a better term – the volcano. He surveyed the damage and whistled inside his helmet. "Don't know what else you guys did down there, but it worked. Thanks a lot guys."

His new companions replied with a chorus of "Aaaaw Shucks" in thanks, even though most of them were covered in soot, ash, and half-encrusted in drying volcanic lava, they were happy and content at being acknowledged.

Digit couldn't help it and added something. "This comes out of our danger pay too, right?"

"What?" Xander joked as they left the area after one more look-see. "Like free cleaning, lube, and the chance to kick the bad guys in the ass not enough?"

"We know where you stash your hidden supply of Twinkies." Bitz replied.

"Point." Xander conceded to the blackmail joke. "But the next time I see your brother dry hump the toaster when he gets drunk from a recharge, all bets are off."

"It was only ONCE!" Wetz protested from his place on the Halcyon while the rest of the Technites present made disgusted noises. Like it was his fault his "AC" wasn't compatible with the power charger's "DC" and turned him into a technologically stoned hippie. "It was an accident I tell you, it won't happen again!"

Xander shuddered at the memory when he walked into the kitchen that mormning and found a highly "intoxicated" Technite as it attempted to seduce the toaster he had modified months prior before he left for space. Never again will he look at household appliances in the same way he did before.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Once the latest news broadcast ended in regards to their mysterious ally, the premier SG team looked at each other with worry written on their face. With every news broadcast, their friend seemed very determined to make his presence known to the world.

"Word is out." Hammond said as he put the red phone down in the briefing room's own private line. "The President and the Join Chiefs want you to try to establish contact with our armored visitor in the hopes he would join us, even if it means going public as a last resort."

"What?!" Sam asked, aghast. "Why?"

"There's too many witnesses to the bank hostage situation to effectively cover it up." Hammond said, face pale at the implications of what his commander in chief had told him. "That rescue out in space was also verified and broadcast all over the globe."

-0-0-0-0-0-

Back in Sunnydale, a certain figure sat behind a large desk in contemplation as he watched the fires of yet another television blown via fireball die down. His plans had been spiraling out of control ever since that bastard chaos mage unknowingly brought some stupid superhero to life over a year ago. Good clean fun, he said. Only one night of revelry and unmitigated chaos, he promised.

Didn't the idiot mage know that too much chaos on top of a Hellmouth was like seducing Murphy with a large sweet lollipop?

Now he had to deal with this, he shook his head in disgust. He had thought that the silver idiot had gone the way of the dodo during the Angelus incident, but no, it seemed he was back. The time he had been building up for the last few centuries was close to fruition and no way in the ninth circle of hell was he going to stop now. No leftover Halloween possessed buffoon was going to interfere with him either.

The door to his office suddenly burst open as two vampires hurried in as they carried in a battered body and dumped him onto the floor.

"Well now." He said jovially towards the sprawled figure. "I think its time we had that talk. You don't call, you don't write, you even run when you of all people should know when I summon. Why, I think you're trying to avoid coming back to Sunnydale no matter what I do. And I even asked nicely."

The figure lying on the floor only mumbled in pain.

"Tut-tut. Come now Ethan such language coming from a fine British gentleman." Richard Wilkins said as he knelt down as he whispered into the chaos mage's ear. "Did your mother know you kissed her with a foul mouth? So tell me, who and what was the Halloween persona that was powerful enough to cause this much chaos in my darling little town? As far as I knew, I never saw anything resembling a Paladin on display in your former shop. Either you were hiding it from me, or it was something else entirely."

-0-0-0-0-0-

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-TBC-

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A/N: This is largely unbeta'd. Any errors will be fixed as always, when I have time. I have no net connection at the moment and am using the library PC to upload this while I wait to watch the new Star Trek movie. I figure i should at least treat myself to a movie after another month of non-stop work and rarely enough free time.


	27. Chapter 25

XANDER HARRIS: THE IRON TAU'RI

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By:"Gunsmith3000"

Started 5-19-08

Completed: ?????

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Disclaimers: Nothing belongs to me other than this insane idea I have that just won't let go. Iron Man belongs to Marvel, Stargate SG1 belongs to MGM. Buffy belongs to Joss... blah, blah

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Summary: Xander goes as one of his favorite marvel comic characters, but gets more than he's bargained for.

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-Conversations-

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"Xander!" The voice that belonged to Janna Kalderash, also known as Jenny Calendar, blared over the intercom speakers of his hidden engineering lab.

Startled by the sudden interruption and immediate cancellation of his current music, Xander accidentally let go of the wrench he was holding as it hit his face on the way down from where he was assembling a customized vehicle he was in the process of making by hand with little mechanical help from JARVIS and his Technites.

It was his form of self-therapy.

"WHAT?" The young engineer growled as he took off one of his safety gloves and rubbed the offended area of his face where the heavy wrench hit. "Can't you see I'm trying to concentrate here?"

When he didn't get a reply, he assumed that Janna had switched off the intercom in disgust and let out a sigh of relief. He was about to order JARVIS to resume the music when a high heeled foot lightly kicked the creeper he lay on, and caused him to abruptly slam his head upwards in surprise.

"Fuck!" The young man yelped in surprise.

Janna let out a feminine grunt of anger and muttered something in Romany as she let loose a spell that hauled Xander out from under the customized auto via magic much to the young man's protest.

"When are you ever going to be with your friends?" She asked her former student-slash-current-boss (not to mention lover) as he blinked dazedly at her. "You hide down here and let your damned LMD take your place in school. And when you DO get out, it's always on some stupid rescue mission like some damned comic book super hero."

"I'm trying all right!" Xander said as he shook his head to clear it of the possible concussion he gave himself. "I just haven't found the time."

"Well try harder." The Romany CEO growled. At his look, she softened her voice as she sighed. "I know you were sort of disappointed with them on how they treated Faith, but they're learning."

"It's not completely that you know." Xander said as he sat on a stool that automatically scooted toward him at a push of a remote button by his side

"Then pray tell me what is?" Janna asked.

"Ever since Halloween…" Xander began as he tried to put the thoughts he had been trying to put into place since his return. "It's just that I've tried to keep this mostly to myself, you know? I tried to hide most of what I was doing and in doing so; I found that I was spending less and less time with them. Every time I was with them, I feel like sometimes they're now just kids to me. That's one of the things the Tony Stark parts of my personality sort of can't relate to anymore. I mean, I find myself relating more to you guys, first you and then your cousin, then Kendra, and now Faith."

"I don't understand." Janna said.

Xander exhaled loudly. "Neither do I. Tony Stark's upbringing, nor my own childhood were exactly normal, Janna. Thanks to Halloween, it was hard to get back into the normal Xander swing of things."

At her look of confusion, Xander tried to elaborate.

"I still see them." He said as he got up and paced. "I still love them, and yet, I feel that I've grown far away from them for more than just a few months in space. It was as if a part of me doesn't fit in that small niche I put myself into. In spite of my hidden triumphs, before this all blew up in my face, I started to notice that they slowly put me fray adjacent because of my supposed inability to defend myself before all this."

Xander walked back to the stool instead of calling for it and sat down with a sight. "The old Xander would have been blind to notice what they were doing out of loyalty to them, but the Tony Stark in me saw that a mile away. While I understood their misguided attempts of trying to keep me from harm, I couldn't let what I've got in my head go to waste when I can do something about it."

Xander shook his head, lost in thought. Even when I didn't know that the Halloween spell of trying to insert pieces of every version of Tony Stark a.k.a. Iron Man into me was slowly killing me, he thought to himself, I wouldn't change a thing if it meant I could keep them safe. If Lilandra hadn't found out about it and helped me, I would have been dead long before I would have gotten back to Earth.

"I'm sorry." Janna said, rousing Xander from his momentary silence. "Give them time. Even Tony Stark knows that children need time."

"Yeah." Xander replied, then his eyes widened as he remembered something as he changed the subject. "By the way, I've been meaning to ask. What are those defense contracts I pulled up from one of our production companies? I thought I told you that there would be no weapons to be developed for any military or private use."

"And they're not." Janna said, having anticipated that her boss would find out. "JARVIS told me you were going to selectively re-patent things your Stark memories created every other while to keep the company afloat. When you disappeared into space and didn't return, we were left to pick and choose which ones we could use. Since the several governments greatly approve of your original systems software, more than half of them – the USA foremost amongst them – wanted to see what we could do in terms of actual defense."

At Xander's look, Janna shrugged. "I did tell them we have a strict 'no-weapons' development policy, but were sort of open to 'passive' defense developments."

Xander looked at her with a raised eyebrow. "JARVIS, kindly pull up the contracts and the released research on the main viewer."

"Yes sir." The smart A.I. replied as far wall that was supposed to be a bare granite wall flickered and turned into a gigantic wall screen with the pertinent data displayed.

Xander looked the files over again and nodded to himself.

"In a way, I sort of approve." He smiled. "You took the words literally. You looked into improvements with current communications technology for field operations, and stronger, but lighter body armor for law enforcement and government employees. Nothing overt and overzealous from any budding firm that wants to contribute."

"All of which are just supposedly "slightly" a decade above current cutting-edge technology that wouldn't be too out of place by today's standards." Janna said as she took one of the remotes on Xander's workbench, and pointed it at the screen to turn to a particular set of files. However, taking into account just how crazy advanced the Marvel Universe was even in our comparable present day, I had to pull some of them that were in use and developed during, and after that universe's World War Two."

"Smart choice, anything else beyond that time-frame and they'd be wondering if you were reverse-engineering a space ship in the basement." Xander smirked. "Heck, even during the Marvel U's 1960's era in the comics, they already had a flying hover car thanks to organizations like S.H.I.E.L.D. Their Helicarrier and some of their stuff were initially designed by both Reed Richards and Tony Stark."

"I didn't know that." Janna said in surprise. "But I guess that explains the plans I saw in regards to High Guard 1 in JARVIS's database, at first I couldn't believe it showed a floating metal island about twice the size of the Big E."

"Don't be surprised." Xander grinned. "Considering the fact that Marvel Comics usually fudge their timelines in their books to keep it current with the current times, it's not surprising that even I would end up with memories and advanced knowledge that could be dated that far back."

"Are you planning on building one?" She asked.

"As in now?" Xander replied. "I don't have the actual man-power and resources to even make a fourth of that thing's parts, or a place to hide construction facilities. The fact is, I know how some of the Helicarriers back in the comic books were built and how they got away with it was astronomical, and insane."

"How did they do it then?" Janna said as Xander pulled up the rough draft plans of High Guard One.

"The first Helicarrier project was first conceived by an organization of like-minded governments out of WW2 that would serve as the basis for what would eventually become the UN, to create a world wide Police force not subject to one local government." Xander began. "Reed and I - I mean Tony Stark - drew up the plans and gave to them. They in turn divided it up to certain departments and intelligence sectors. They built everything piecemeal to keep everyone from guessing what the whole project will be."

"A part in the Marvel U's equivalent of area 51 built some of the framework, namely the gravimetric engines that kept the damned thing afloat in the air. Scientists and engineers used our plans to reverse engineered and modified the first working one from actual crash-landed alien spacecrafts. The supposed propellers drawn in the comic books weren't really propellers in reality, they were just dummy props on a separate engine to hide the actual gravity drives that really kept that thing in the sky. The others parts where built through proxies, dummy corporations, and through some – insert euphemism here – clandestine volunteer work."

At Janna's looked at him as she had a few guesses as to what was involved and didn't like some of it. Her lips pursed to say something, but Xander headed her off. "Here me out before you go ballistic."

"Continue." She grunted with clenched teeth.

Xander did just that, his voice sounded ragged as he continued as he drew on memories from one of the Tony Starks that experienced it. "Some of the major 'volunteers' were death row prisoners scheduled for immediate execution and sequestered in very remote locations. It was easier to get rid of any loose ends and to prevent any leaks. All you had to do was simply kill them after they completed it. For the others that were not so thoroughly coerced: it was a case of them signing non-disclosure forms, drugged them for transport to and from work sites. Once done, a resident telepath would alter their memories clean and watched if they needed them in the future. Those that somehow resisted memory alteration were brought on board fully, while the ones that were deemed as security risks were dealt with."

Janna gasped. "And some of your memories of Tony Stark had this?"

"Oh, he didn't know at first." Xander said as he ran a hand through his hair. "They were some of the more secretive reasons why he drank, part of that was to forget ever signing on to that thing, not even the UN knew the lengths of what they did to get that thing up and running. Even the best of intentions came with a price. Few rarely see the price tag, let alone find out by accident. Heck, I think even Nick Fury found out about it in the end, but kept his mouth shut in spite of not liking it. Stark was just the designer, the engineer, not the logistical planner in a shadow cabinet. When he found out the truth, he backed out after the contract was finished. He made sure Reed never found what he found out too. Reed was all about science and making things work, but as smart as the man was, the guy was a certified nerd with no real-world-idea on how to deal with an assassin on his own life before he got those cosmic power ups."

"I'm amazed they didn't kill Stark after that." Janna said.

"You're kidding me right?" Xander laughed humorlessly. "Tony dealt with assassins long before he wore the armor, and not just for government contracts either. Tony Stark turning into Iron Man was part fluke, and part design – fluke on his part, design on whoever wanted him dead part. More than a few people wanted him dead for a host of different reasons, Janna, government contracts were a small part of the large pie of problems that drove him to drink. Lethal corporate espionage wasn't an euphemism when it came to him. He just didn't stay dead the way they wanted him to. One possible reason why he's still alive was because Nick might have watched out for him discreetly, but not even I know for sure."

Janna Kalderash shook her head as she tried to imagine the amount of knowledge Stark had given Xander until she remembered what they were talking about prior to Xander's evasion in the first place.

"Smooth move for a topic change, Xander. That explains part of why you feel out of touch now with them, right?" Janna asked as she brought the topic back full circle from where it strayed. "It's because you don't see things anymore as black and white? But in shades of gray?"

"Yep." Xander answered. "And the reason why I understand what they're trying to do up to a point. Buffy may whine and complain about her being the Slayer, but she also has a funny way of claiming said unwanted destiny it whenever someone tries to muscle in on her unwanted destiny. Didn't want to be a Slayer, but might as well do the job anyways even when she hates it. As for Willow, I had to be who I had to be when I became her friend. Now that she found a new friend, her reaction is typical of wanting to please the new one while trying to hang on to the old one."

"That's a bit skewed, Xander." Janna said. "And maybe a bit inaccurate, at least, I think, about Willow."

"That's how I saw it, 'Jenny'." Xander said, saying her other name with a smile. "She called me Xander, and so I became Xander. I got so good at it that all they see now is the Xander they want to see. Any deviation from the current path would be un-Xander like, no longer clumsy, goofy, frail, or loyal to a fault."

"And ever since Halloween…" Xander continued. "I don't know if I can be that Xander again, or if that was really me in the first place. Heck, I'm not even sure who I am anymore. I sure as heck wasn't the type to go gallivanting across the universe in some misplaced idea of heroism to try to save lives before all this happened. A heart-to-heart with them isn't going to solve the tension we have right now, especially when I see them the way I see them with Stark's way of thinking."

Janna reached out and gently squeezed Xander's shoulders. "I don't believe you, Xander. I don't think you were that blind in your loyalty. The Halloween incident was probably just the catalyst that started bringing out the real you that didn't have to hide – the kind of person who no longer wanted to play the fool. Maybe you already started to realize some things when you first dragged Angel's ass to save Buffy in the Master's lair, Halloween just sped it all up."

"How'd you find out about that?" Xander stared.

"Before I started my job in Sunnydale High as the new computer teacher, I had to get the lay of the land." Janna said smugly at Xander's discomfiture. "A few discreet inquiries were made, and a most interesting rumor about a young teen seen dragging a vampire into the former Master's lair was bandied around. At first, it made no sense to me until I started to get to know Rupert and made the connection after he told me of an averted prophecy."

Xander blushed. "I just did what I had to do."

"There you have it, then." Janna said. "It might have been the start of the change where you started to leave little boy things behind."

"I still like Twinkies though." Xander grinned. "That'll never change."

"I know." Janna frowned as she narrowed her eyes at him in annoyance as she drew up close to him. "I've seen the stash – or should I say, hoard – in you room. I'm disappointed, Xander, a healthy young man of your age should at least have a burgeoning porn collection among them aside from the assorted snacks."

"Maybe it's because I'm such a gentleman?" Xander inched away from Janna, flashes of what happened during one drunken night of commiseration coming to the forefront of his mind.

Janna raised an elegant right eyebrow as she smirked up at him as if to say "I think I know you that much to know you're lying."

"I keep them for him in video format, Miss Kalderash." JARVIS piped up.

"Really?" She turned and sashayed away from him to head back to her office.

"JARVIS!" Xander glared at the wall, face flushed red as Janna's laughter echoed back to him.

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Eternity stared at the planet below him. The star system in particular that caught his cosmic attention housed a ravaged world that looked as if it was on its last legs of life. That in itself was nothing spectacular, but what his cosmic awareness noticed was what was hiding out of phase inside it.

Curious, the former human-turned-cosmic-being entered the planet's atmosphere and decided to investigate. What he found was a dimensionally phased intelligent world-ship that was chronological older than the planet and the star system it inhabited – by a very large factor.

"Hello nurse!" Eternity said as materialized on the ship's 'main' deck much to Lilandra's shock when her perimeter scans detected no intrusion.

"Who are you?" The ancient A.I. asked.

"I'm just humble visitor." Eternity replied. "I'm a little curious as to how you came to be here. Everything about you is surprisingly far older than the solar system you're occupying."

"A lady never tells her true age." She said as she tried to scan him, but failed to come up with a proper analysis. "What are you?"

Eternity suddenly felt a tingle of recognition at whom he was addressing as knowledge filtered in from the cosmic ether. "Tal'ahase'?"

"How do you know that?" The A.I. asked in shock as her own memory banks supplied her with the image of the project leader she used as her holographic image.

"Forgive me." Eternity apologized. "I'm what you would call one of the universal constant's newest avatar. I was the victim of a chaos spell some time ago and the magick of our world's Hellmouth caused some interference in what I was supposed to be. The result was a bizarre forced accension by a multitude of factors until something took over and drafted me into a long absent office."

"Interesting." Lilandra said as she entered the new data into her systems. "The last recorded avatar was past the last age of my creators. It was believed that the position was just like its namesake: eternal."

"Yes and no." The current avatar of Eternity tried to explain. "While the position itself has no end, the reality where you are stationed to does. Once we have done all we can do in one set reality, something let's us move on to another. Something I've recently become aware of. I'm simply learning as I go along, you know."

Lilandra just looked at him, an air of expectation on her face as she recorded their meeting.

"But enough about me." Eternity said with a smile. "I just want to ask you something which you should have asked yourself since you met the remarkable young human. I mean, I know you've done your research on his planet."

"And what would that be?" The ancient AI asked, curious.

"Why aren't you on your way to Earth?" He asked before he suddenly vanished.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Two days later, Xander peered through the library doors as he spied on his friends speaking with Giles.

"The learning process has to start somewhere right?" His LMD spoke beside him while it kept watch for anyone loitering near the library. "And this has been a long time in coming since you came back."

Xander nodded. "I think I made you too well. But then I'd have to so you'd be me when I needed an alibi while I'm out in the armor."

"Indeed."

The young engineer took in a deep breath before he pushed through the doors and walked in with his LMD in tow, much to the shock of all those in the room.

Slightly out of phase, Eternity smiled in Xander's wake as the "remarkable young human" walked inside the library to talk with his friends.

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-TBC-

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AN: I know it's late.... RL life has not been kind to me these past few months and I found it hard to write. No, writer's block isn't the problem.... real life is. I have a head full of ideas and so little time to actually write. I have a notebook full of disjointed scenes of every sort imaginable for my stories... problem is, I'm so tired at the end of the day that I keep putting if off. The recession ain't helping me either.

Speaking of which, I am very sleepy when I posted this, so I also apologize if I made any errors.


	28. Chapter 26

XANDER HARRIS: THE IRON TAU'RI  
By:"Gunsmith3000"  
Started 5-19-08  
Completed: ?????

Disclaimers: Nothing belongs to me other than this insane idea I have that just won't let go. Iron Man belongs to Marvel, Stargate SG1 belongs to MGM. Buffy belongs to Joss... blah, blah

Summary: Xander goes as one of his favorite marvel comic characters, but gets more than he's bargained for.

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-Commencement, part 1-

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The strains of the live, extended version of an AC/DC song that played throughout Main Engineering was drowned out by a string of loud epithets as a variety of sparks lit up the already bright room by a factor of three down by the prototype section.

Abruptly, the music stopped as the few Technites were drawn by the commotion now provided fire suppressants to what used to be a motorized unicycle prototype.

Xander swore loudly once more when he saw the damage after the smoke died down.

"There goes the day." He sighed.

"Creator." Digit began as he studied what his creator was trying to do. "The level of tech you are attempting is far below your current armor caliber. Why attempt it at all with substandard engineering?"

"Because…" Xander replied as he shook his head at what was left of two whole day's build work down the drain after a week of tweaking the design via CAD. "I'm trying to make this with the idea of marketing it as a road-worthy vehicle for the masses rather than for my own personal private use. If private is what I was aiming for; sure, I'd load it up with my usual standard tech level. Hell, I have half a mind to forgo the gyroscope controlled-wheel and just give it a repulsor-driven engine."

Digit nodded at what his creator was getting at while the rest of his brethren studied the burnt-out prototype. It was archaic, by their standards, but trying to introduce a lot of advancements into a civilization that was – in spite of alien interference – still finding its way out of its own world, could destabilize it one way or another.

"You just love to work with your hands." Janna butted in to Xander's surprise. "But then even in the comic books, Tony Stark almost always loved a hands-on approach."

"That; and I want to work within a set limitation." Xander agreed. "I've also acquired Stark's penchant for setting himself up for a challenge, its part of his competitive nature."

"So Stark is narcissistic enough to try to beat himself at his own game?" Janna asked.

"Yep." Xander smirked.

"By the way…" Janna began. "I love what you did with your new armor."

"What?" Xander said in confusion.

"Uh-oh." Digit vocalized as he finally realized what Persat said earlier about that armor needing a facelift . "So that's what Persat and the twins were up to when I visited them in the armory."

"What did they do?" Xander rounded on his lead Technite, the alarm in his voice palpable.

"All Persat said that it should be a little more fashionable and that it needed a little extra attachment to the space on the back so she could dock and keep an eye on you whenever possible by hitching a ride on your back to keep you safe." The leader of the Technites replied. "The woman's becoming sort of a mother hen where you are involved ever since that incident out in space."

"Oh God." Xander muttered as he ran out of the bay he was in and dashed towards the armory.

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"What the hell?" Xander stared at the armor that stood beside the one Lilandra made for him. He half-expected to find that the female Technite had rearranged the armor, instead, she and the twins had built a new one.

The new armor was a whole sleeker. While still "armor"-like, gone were the bulkier protrusions that Xander liked to give it for the menacing look. They made it look like a body-suit that had been refashioned into armor. The helmet almost looked like it was an extended mold of his face, minus the nose, ears, and mouth. In fact, it was simply looked like a Y-styled slit, much like the hologram over his other armors in Silver Paladin mode.

Just looking at it definitely looked more alien than something a human could come up with.

Xander poked the armor with a finger and was surprised to find it had a little give. Confused, he ran his whole hand over it. It almost felt like some sort of leather, but it was contradicted by a hollow bang when he stuck it with a emough force, confirming that there was no one inside. Something about its colors seemed familiar, and not in the mildly Iron Man way, of course.

"What the hell is this made out of?" He wondered aloud.

"You like it?" Persat asked. "The twins and I managed to micronize the armor plating further. Apart from the hidden seams to get in and out of the unit, the armor is outwardly almost as flexible as latex, but with the consistency of your adamantium formula."

"We had to make a few concessions though." Bitz piped in as he emerged from behind the armor. "Minimal weapons package only for a smaller frame, but with an upgraded power source. Your standard repulsors on your palms and chest are still there, however, this armor won't have any projectile capabilities. Your boot thrusters have been replaced with grav-compensators that are akin to what we have."

"How the hell am I gonna maintain this in my armory?" Xander asked. "I remember specifically asking for stuff I can easily maintain when I last talked to Lilandra. There is no way the technology in my labs can repair this if it gets busted up."

"We have a solution for that." Digit butted in. "We have already begun to upgrade your lab's tech capability. But not by much, considering what we know of your penchant to work hands-on on some projects and are going to connect it to the upgrades. In any case, we have volunteered to help maintain this armor in regards to the tech."

"Thanks Dig." Xander said, smiling, and he faced the other three Technites. "And thanks too you three."

He took another look at his new armor he'd already dubbed Mark V "Plasma Armor" and suddenly came to the realization on why the blending of red, gold, white, and black seemed a little bit familiar.

It was almost similar to…

"You tried to copy Deadpool's color scheme?" Xander goggled. "I'll look like a freaking cross between Iron Man and Deadpool!"

"I don't remember who Deadpool is, but the colors look nice." Janna said from where she was studying the armor. "A little bit more intimidating, in spite of the lack of the usual standard bulkiness."

"He's this crazy as can be mercenary that just can't shut up for no reason in the comics that….. " Xander tried to explain but his voice trailed off as he shook his head. "Never mind, trust me when I say you really don't want to know. The comic books barely paint a full picture of him, though now I sort of do wonder how the hell he knew some stuff from Stark's memories."

An alarm began to blare out as the wall screen inside the armory sprang to life as JARVIS relayed a live news broadcast into the room.

"… for those of you just tuning in…" The CNN reporter spoke into the camera. "Dulles International Airport received a distress call from AirTrams Intercontinental flight 647 roughly fifteen minutes ago…. It appears that they have been caught in the mysterious electrical storm that suddenly sprang up within their flight path and a freak lightning strike took out one of their engines…."

Without a word, Xander headed to the armor that he dubbed Mark IV that he arrived from space with and he shouted some orders to Janna.

"Get Kendra on the horn and tell her to suit up, but without the standard ordnance." He said as he shed his clothes as the nanotech control suit emerged from his body in preparation for his armor.

"Got it." Janna said as she headed towards the nearest com terminal, but paused at the lip of the doorway. "Wait, her suit isn't as fast as yours. She'll never catch up."

"I know." Xander replied as he punched in a few commands into the console beside the niche where he kept the armor. "That's why I'm asking you to have her suit up without the heavy shoulder and back ordnances, I'm having JARVIS release the extra pulse booster from storage and attach it to her back in place of the weapons. "

Janna nodded and got out of the room.

Xander turned to the Technites while he suited up.

"Guys." He said. "Remember what we talked about while on Lilandra's ship?"

As one, his "creations" nodded.

"Start phase one of the project." He said, just as he clamped the helmet on and flew for the desert exit towards the hot zone.

"Hal!" Xander called to his weapons platform. "You're coming with us, buddy. We got a plane to catch, literally."

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Xander blasted out of the desert entrance, with Hal following close by as they sped towards the east coast. A few minutes later, Kendra caught up with them en-route wearing the spare pulse booster clamped in place where her main weapons used to be on her back.

As one, all three went hypersonic towards the aircraft in peril.

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Ten miles inbound to Dulles International Airport…

"This is Scout 1 and 2 inbound for AirTrams flight 647." Major Cameron Mitchell spoke into his com pickup as he braced himself to enter the danger zone of the storm. The bucking of the aircraft grew as it breached the outer edge of the storm that raged within. "I've entered the hot zone; visibility is low due to the storm but I will be within eyeball range in t-minus 30 seconds."

"Copy that Scout One." The tower control from Dulles International replied. "Be careful, we don't want another lightning strike to take out another plane."

"I'm within range, Tower." The pilot radioed back. "I see them; their second port side engine is a tangled mess, exactly where they reported the lightning hit. It's not a hoax; they are barely in control, sir."

"Damn it." Dulles tower cursed. "Do you think they'll make it to the airport?"

"Not sure on that one sir." Mitchell's wingman replied as lightning crashed around them. "The freak storm's getting worse up here, sir, even our own instruments are starting to get antsy."

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From within Dulles International Airport tower control, one of the air traffic controllers let out a surprised yelp as a three blips suddenly appeared inbound.

"SIR!" The young ATC shouted over the regular chatter within the room. "I've got three more bogeys inbound to AirTram Intercontinental flight 647 coming in from the west."

"More Hornets?" The ATC-in charge asked as he rushed to a nearby console to verify his junior's find along with the Military on the com.

"Negative." Major Mitchell spoke over the com as his own base picked up the bogeys a hair's breath before the regular ATC did in Dulles. "We're the only ones out of Bolling Air Force Base. Whoever they are, they're coming in fast. Way too fast for a storm this size."

"Holy shit!" Mitchell's wingman yelled. "They just blasted past us!"

"Easy Royce." Cam cautioned his wingman. "It looks like they're coming back."

"I see them." Major Royce Dominguez's eyes went wide as the bogeys slowed down in front of them for a proper visual. "Oh my God…. It's the alien; and it brought friends!"

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Chatter increased between the hornets, Dulles International, flight 647 and Bolling Air Force Base as they discussed the new arrivals.

Once again, in which was steadily become a common occurrence whenever Stargate Command's premier team's new "friend" made the news; people within the base crowded close to every nearby terminal that broadcasted the news.

And as usual, the red phone in Hammond's office rang.

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"Well, crap." Xander said from within his helmet, one look at the barely in control plane made the young engineer shudder. "Too bad I sent the Technites out on an errand earlier, could've used their help to rebuild the engine on the spot."

"What are we going to do?" Kendra asked as she flew abreast of him, her flight assisted via pulse booster to compensate for her slower, heavier armor minus the large weapons packs. "I doubt that we can safely do this without further damage to the aircraft."

"Its risky, but we can manage it. I'll take the damaged wing section and provide some extra lift until you guys get in position." Xander said. "Once Hal clamps on to the underside of that thing, you'll be helping with the controlled descent. When that happens, I'll do the same."

"Sir." Hal radioed from his position aft. "We'll have to ask the pilots to cut power so we can do everything on our end without external interference."

"Gotcha, Hal. Broadcast to all parties please." Xander said as they inched towards the damaged aircraft.

"Broadcasting." Hal said.

"Attention Tau'ri AirTrams Intercontinental flight 647." Xander said as he accelerated and lined up with the airliner's cockpit and waved at the stunned pilots. "We are responding to your distress call and are here to help."

"What the hell?" The captain of the damaged airliner said as the transmission was broadcast even through the onboard PA system.

"We have a way of getting you down." The toneless voice continued. "Once my companion and our craft are directly underneath you, at our signal, please cut your drives and we will manually guide you downwards to your destination."

A flash of lightning suddenly flashed through the sky followed by a crack of thunder and an explosion lit up the already tormented airspace.

"Holy!" Xander immediately cut the broadcast as his eyes widened in shock when he saw that the lightning had struck the closest F18 Hornet amidships and played merry havoc with its systems, making it plummet like a stone.

"Screw the initial plan!" Xander shouted to Hal and Kendra as he dove after the smoking fighter. "You two are it for the jet. S.A.B.E.R., you're in charge. Hal, start the rescue!"

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Captain Jeff Fahey stared as the armored alien outside of his damaged aircraft did an impossible 180 degree turn at high speed and chased after the plummeting fighter craft.

"Craft designation Halcyon and my partner, S.A.B.E.R. will take over from here." The lead alien, Jeff guessed, transmitted. "I'll be going after the other aircraft."

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"Royce!" Mitchell screamed into his com when he saw the lightning strike his wingman's plane.

Royce only had seconds as he blew out his canopy and ejected before the plane exploded in mid-air.

Mitchell's wingman cursed as he pulled on his chute only to find it had caught fire when he exited from the explosion.

A rush of air from the other direction caught his attention as he saw the armored being power-dive beside his falling form. Upon seeing that the armored thing's head looking at him, Royce exaggeratedly pantomimed to the alien that his chute was damaged in the explosion.

The armored alien nodded and reached out to the falling pilot, they fell a few more feet before Xander changed directions and roared ahead towards the airport with his burden.

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Xander bit out a few choice words for Major Mitchell to head down and land. He ground out that he and his friends won't be able to focus on two crafts at the time should his own aircraft become compromised.

Mitchell replied with a grudging affirmative and followed Xander's armored form as he carried his wingman to safety.

Not far off, part of Dulles's emergency ground crews rolled out towards the descending armored figure. Duty replaced awe as they rushed about the landing zone in preparation for the downed wingman's arrival.

Not even bothering to land, Xander dipped low enough for the pilot he carried to do a safe forward landing roll before he aimed himself skywards again and blasted off post haste towards the incoming airliner.

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Both Kalderash back at Pal-Core watched the scene via remote satellite feed alongside the news crew filming the incident in the ground with worry.

"JARVIS?" Anna asked the mainframe AI. "Can I get detailed information on how that storm came up, please? Something very strange is going on here."

"No concise data at this time." JARVIS replied as he searched through the meteorological reports for any clues. "However there was a strange, but subtle energy surge above the upper ionosphere recorded at least two hours ago and roughly ten miles from that airspace."

"Coincidence?" Anna mused aloud as she shared a look with her cousin.

"Could be." Janna said as they studied the sketchy meteorological report again. "I'm amazed he even found it in these reports, but I'm no meteorologist, so this is mostly gibberish to me."

"Let Xander have a look at them when he gets back. My weather magic isn't really my forte, and he might know a thing or two with this data that we don't." Anna said as the news about the "aliens" helping with the distress call blared through the room.

"True." Janna sighed. "I just hope none of them ever try to pin the freak storm on them, though, because this is suspicious as hell."

"Maybe they won't." JARVIS spoke. "I've just intercepted a rather strange communiqué between the US Military and a certain Dr. Lee Helm regarding some sort of storm god on the loose named Ba'al. It is however, being treated as a hoax."

"Which one?" Anna asked. "There's two Ba'als"

"I beg your pardon?" JARVIS said. "My data only indicated one such Ba'al in the database as a god of the rain, thunder, fertility and agriculture, and the Lord of the Heavens."

"That is essentially true." Anna smirked. "But not many know out of written records that there was also a god-made-flesh named Ba'al, who some time ago, claimed to be the real thing. The false Ba'al was easier to banish than the real one, though."

"So noted." JARVIS entered the data as he continued his research, while branching on another search for all things related to Ba'al, and found a few more references within Stargate Command's as yet un-translated cache of data concerning Goa'ulds that may prove a match for the supposed god-made-flesh one.

The older AI would have to thank the Technites when they come back for the recent additions in his translation data-cores, it already proved useful in this instance. Knowing that his creator should be kept abreast of developments within the SGC, he copied the new data and updated the ones Xander collected earlier via the backdoor he made with their installation of his OS into their system.

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The atmosphere surrounding Dulles International Airport was tense as the world watched two of the supposed extraterrestrials guide the damaged airliner down. They saw that the other armored "alien" that dropped off the pilot rejoin them and positioned itself underneath the nose of the plane as the smaller craft with them situated itself further along under the center of the larger airborne vehicle extend some sort of energy field that barely covered the larger one as they readied for the final approach.

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"My structural integrity field is extended and in place, Xander." Hal signaled his creator. "I am uncertain as to how long it will hold; my SIF was never designed for this eventuality."

"Roger that, Hal, remind me to give that a design change and an overhaul." Xander replied as he got himself ready. "Kendra, you're going to have to move towards the rear and help me provide retro-thrust while Hal worries about the entire thing through the SIF."

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It was a strange day in Washington, DC as the people stayed glued to their TV sets and watched as their supposedly otherworldly visitors bring the deadweight airliner to a coasting hover over the tarmac with the jet's landing gears out. It hovered for a few seconds before the smaller craft moved away from underneath, gliding over the ground as Xander and Kendra brought the full power of their boot thrusters into play as a sudden switch of weight distribution occurred.

Stress alarms in their armor blared at their respective wearers as Hal transferred the full weight of the craft momentarily onto them as it slid out from underneath them.

"NOW!" Xander grunted over the internal alarms inside his armor as he signaled Kendra to land the plane.

And just like that, the damaged airliner landed with a barely discernable thump.

Moving in tandem with Xander, Kendra moved towards a hatch while her boss situated himself with another. At a prearranged signal, their suits interfaced with the craft's electronics and manually activated the hatch release systems and reached in to activate the evacuation slides.

hr  
The passengers closest to the doors saw an armored arm as it reached in towards the open doorframe and searched for something. Finding the right lever, it released the emergency evacuation slides. Once that was out of the way, a silver-like head poked through the entrance and stared at the passengers.

The passengers stared back in stunned shock.

Xander smirked inside his helmet at their wide-eyed looks. In monotone, he asked if anyone was injured. When no one moved in reply, he scanned the room just in case and turned towards the pretty Stewardess nearest the exit.

"You may begin emergency debarking procedures." He told her, and left.

The stewardess snapped out of her funk as her training took over, shouting over the sudden din after the alien's departure before a stampede could break out.

Xander met up with Kendra towards the rear of the craft as she called to him.

"Xander." Kendra said in greeting. "A donor organ transporter towards the rear of the craft is requesting an airlift to the George Washington University Hospital, with at least three organ transport units that need to be there as soon as possible."

"Let's do it." Xander said as he followed Kendra towards the rear entrance/exit, wondering why the person risked using a commercial airliner rather then the usual standard medical air transport. "You scoop up the transporter while I get the units."

When he saw that a svelte young woman was the medical transporter, he caught himself as he almost blurted out a change in plans. Now was not the time for one of Stark's infamous libido going off, even if the woman looked like a young Michelle Pfeiffer. Some patient's life was a lot more important than base desires at the moment. In any case, everyone thought they aren't humans underneath the armor anyway.

The woman nervously pointed to some large "coolers" beside her seat as Kendra held out a hand to her. Xander nodded and grabbed them while everyone else watched the scene in fascination.

Acting like he had no idea where to go - and making a show of it - Xander asked the girl if she can spot the building from the air. At her affirming nod, he told Kendra to carry the girl and take the lead while he would follow them with their other cargo.

He took one last scan of the other people inside the plane just to be on the safe side and nodded in farewell as he joined Kendra in flight.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Several news crews were somehow lucky enough to be on-site during the entire affair captured the whole thing right down to the end as Xander and his companion were shown to airlift a passenger clad in medical greens along with several containers, presumably transported organs, to a local hospital.

An offhand comment was overheard from one of the passengers that debarked caused a flurry of cell phone activity from most of the news teams to send some backup units to George Washington University Hospital in the hope of an interview at the very least.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Watching the news, Deputy Mayor Alan Finch stared in wide-eyed surprise at the sight of the supposed female armored alien the local demons have been calling "Valkyrie". No doubt, the taller, more masculine one was the infamous "Silver Paladin" that the Mayor had tortured the late Ethan Rayne for information over a week ago. He'd been tasked to use the town's "resources" in trying to locate said beings, and here they were live on the news.

Just thinking of the Mayor made him shudder, it wasn't long when he started his employ as the Deputy Mayor that he had become privy to the "other side of town" as it were. Once, when he started his term, he felt honored to serve alongside the son of the man he idolized as a child – and indeed, one of the reasons why he became interested in politics in the first place – much to his shock, he now found was the same man who'd been running the town for well over a century. The things he had seen since had gnawed at his soul.

For a long time, he felt that there was no hope, almost resigning himself to live with a cloud of darkness following his every step as he served a "man" whose sole purpose of building the town was to ascend to a higher level demon using the Hellmouth's latent energies. Then the Mayor decided to bring in the Slayer, to unknowingly, help in keeping the "local wildlife" in check. A simple inquiry, followed by a ton of bribes and misdirection allowed the Summers women who had fallen in dire financial straits to move to sweet Sunnydale to "get away from it all, and start anew".

Of course, while the Mayor had to foresight to bring the Slayer here to "help" with his Edward Nest problem, he never counted on fate being that much of a bitch to let it simply end there. Indeed, everything has snowballed after one of her friends managed to revive her a few seconds after drowning during her fight with the Master complicated his game plan.

Then the "Silver Paladin" came, the only clue that the Mayor had been able see in one of his divinations was that the Paladin was somehow tied to Ethan Rayne's shenanigans during Halloween the year before. This worried Wilkins, because even when taping the latent energies of the Hellmouth for clues as to who the stranger was, something had blocked him. While the damned sorcerer did the best he could not to garner the attention of the higher powers, the same it seemed, could not be said for the Paladin.

From what Finch was able to ascertain from his own personal sources, it seemed as if the Paladin and his lady friend; the Valkyrie, had become friends with the Slayer. That somehow relieved him; at least he wouldn't have to do something drastic to gain their attention. He looked away from the news on the television as his eyes sought out the large, bulky manila folder on his desk.

For better or worse, he steeled his resolve as he made his decision, what remained of his tattered soul for once at peace.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Across the hall from where Finch's office was located, Richard Wilkins sighed as he suddenly looked up from signing some DWP work forms.

"Oh, my dear Alan..." The over-a-century old dark sorcerer said in disappointment. "Where have I ever steered you wrong?"

-0-0-0-0-0-

-0-0-0-0-0-

-TBC-

-0-0-0-0-0-

A/N: To paraphrase Mark Twain: "Reports of my demise were exaggerated."

I am very sorry for not updating in so long. Life really hasn't been kind as I joined a statistically common occurrence last year... the company I worked for over five years suffered "financial trauma" and at least 75 percent of its workforce joined the ranks of the unemployed - I was one of the unlucky 75 percent. To add insult to injury, my old PC decided to join the mayhem as it broke down.... destroying several weeks work of rough drafts on stories old, and new... when your old hard drive starts making sounds, you KNOW its a bad sign... luckily enough, part of the data was saved... unluckily however, the more recent works dating one month behind my last posting have been wiped clean.

After months of looking for work just to buy a new PC and etc... It took a horrendously slow time to start writing again. Trust me when I say that sometimes working 12-13 hour days does a LOT to kill the creativity.... so much so that it took me this long to finish this chapter... I've worked, reworked, demolished, and rebuilt it along the way and I have to say I am not satisfied still at the outcome. I fear I may be losing my touch.... but hell, at least I have to try, no way in hell am I abandoning this just because of some setbacks.

In any case, just to let you all know; Xander and Kendra - especially Xander, never named himself "Silver Paladin" --- the vampires and demons simply tacked on that label and it stuck. Xander used "Silver Paladin" as the code phrase for the "camo" for his armor to hide his Iron Man looks... Kendra does not have such a "camo"... Xander never designed her armor to resemble War Machine down to a "T"... however, he DID designate her suit "S.A.." a few chapters ago..... later on, Xander will start to slightly veer away from the usual Iron Man motif .... the Mark V suit that Persat and the twins made will make sure of that..... though they WILL still bear the influence of Stark's designs, the things he'll be fighting in the future will wear and tear through the Stark collective's vanity when it comes to armorsmithing.

...and by the way, why Mark V? Here is why:

Mark 0 - Test Prototype (Iron Man movie Mark II look)

Mark I - Silver Paladin (Improved Iron Man movie Mark II look)

Mark II - this is the one he went to space in.

Mark III - which is really the Mark II, but thanks to Loki's interference, even its look changed... and was destroyed due to the alien technovirus that almost killed Xander.

Mark IV - Lilandra's gift to Xander before he left for Earth.

Mark V - Armor Persat and the twins made on a lark due to Persat's insistence... this looks like the new armor in the current comics... form fitting, has no standard projectile weaponry built-in but can be attached via outside ports.... color scheme is black, red, gold, with silver highlights (think of Deadpool's costume with some changes from the neck down wearing IM armor)


	29. Chapter 27

XANDER HARRIS: THE IRON TAU'RI  
By:"Gunsmith3000"  
Started 5-19-08  
Completed: ?

Disclaimers: Nothing belongs to me other than this insane idea I have that just won't let go. Iron Man belongs to Marvel, Stargate SG1 belongs to MGM. Buffy belongs to Joss... blah, blah

Summary: Xander goes as one of his favorite marvel comic characters, but gets more than he's bargained for.

-0-0-0-0-0-

-  
-Commencement, part 2-

-0-0-0-0-0-

Xander stared at the gaggle of newshounds and television reporters amongst the crowd in the parking lots of the hospital they were landing on, every visible camera pointed up at them as a spotlight started tracking their descent.

"How the hell did they get here so fast?" He muttered with a shake of his head, he thankfully noticed that the helipad on the roof wasn't full of milling people. That meant that security in there was somewhat tight enough for that small blessing. The part of him that was the amalgam of a lot of Tony Starks craved the attention; but Xander personally, however, didn't want it at all. "S.A.B.R.E., let's land on the helipad on the roof. I don't want to get mobbed by the crowd down there."

"I agree." Kendra replied from within her helmet as she relayed her response privately as they all moved to do so.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Their passenger was slightly wide-eyed at the spectacle below her, never before in her life did she expect her usual milk run of delivering transplants included a ferry from two beings from outer space. She was still reeling from the mid-air rescue she was party to as it was the plane that she was on that needed rescuing mere minutes ago.

Michelle looked towards the almost silver-clad alien as it/he, directed them to the roof for landing. Just by looking at the crowd gathered below, she had to admit it was the best choice at the moment. A part of her wanted to just drop off the transplants and high-tail it out along with her ride. She didn't want to face the eager throng of reporters and hospital staff given the current situation.

"Oh hell," Michelle mentally cringed as she spotted more than a dozen cameras pointed up at them once the searchlights spotted them. She just KNEW beyond the shadow of a doubt that her husband and the kids were watching the news right this minute.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Michelle's muttered oath was not left unnoticed by Kendra as she understood how the medical transporter felt. Just looking at the crowd of reporters and rubberneckers made her feel a little bit claustrophobic even from this distance. She had been brought up by her former "profession" as a Slayer to work in secret; it mattered not if her actions were noticed as long as she herself was NEVER noticed.

She was at least a little thankful that the armor Xander provided her completely masked who she was other than the outward gender the armor presented. Still, she didn't like being exposed even in armor, but she knew she had a responsibility to use what gifts that had been given to her unselfishly.

That was one of the most important things she learned from her Watcher: Sam Zabuto. She remembered him telling her that if she had power to help people in need; then to do so, even at the risk of exposure.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Alighting atop the roof's vacant helipad, both of the armored teens were surprised as the doors leading inwards blew open as three medical personnel ran towards them. The one in the lead drug along a med-cart ran for the donor cases as the other two – obviously a doctor, judging by the lab coat and ID tag, and a nurse with a wheelchair – ran towards Michelle to look her over and offer assistance.

Xander silently handed over the cases to the waiting aide with the cart as the aide nervously muttered "thank you" and wheeled around to run back in to deliver the precious cargo before Xander could ever reply with a "you're welcome".

The armored engineer turned towards Kendra as they watched with amusement as her charge was fussed over by the doctor and the nurse. The nurse however looked a little familiar, sounded familiar too judging how some of her own questions ran over whatever the doctor was doing.

"Ah, hell." Xander panicked a little as he finally placed the reason why the nurse was familiar as she turned from questioning Michelle to start in on him. He subtly gestured for Kendra to prepare for takeoff, he'd done his research on who was facing him and a lot of sources told him that the person was as close to being a modern age Lois Lane-personified. Meaning: she dogged a good story to hell and back with the fervor of a pit bull after a good chew toy that got her into twice as much trouble as her comic-book counterpart.

Christine J. Atwater, the "reporter" that he'd rescued along with several scientists a few weeks ago from an angry volcano was only a few feet away from him.

"Hi!" She waved at him in an act that seemed way too giddy, blowing through whatever professionalism she tried to muster as she once again faced the "person" that saved her life a while back.

"Oy!" The Stark gestalt in Xander's head thought. "There goes her professional cred."

-0-0-0-0-0-

He thanked his lucky stars the armor hid any sense of emotion as he rolled his eyes at the woman – no, reporter – who cheerily waved at him like a star-struck fan. The Stark gestalt were used to the media attention, he however, was not.

"Good evening, Miss Atwater." Xander did his best to hide the small amount of worry and annoyance from coming out of his armor's modulated monotone voice. "We meet again."

-0-0-0-0-0-

Meanwhile, while Xander was trying not to shoot the giddy reporter with a well-placed repulsor bolt as she tried to get an interview, Kendra took note of the ever-increasing swarm of newshounds below on the hospital grounds. Not liking the situation one bit as their on-board tracking systems spotted a few military-grade helicopters and ground vehicles homing in on their position.

"Xander." She commed quietly over their private line. "We need to leave."

"I see them." He replied aloud to Kendra, he turned back to Christine and nodded curtly. "As fun as this is for you, we have to go."

Xander glanced back at Michelle and nodded again in farewell as the duo prepared to take off.

They walked a few feet away from the hospital crew and lifted off with a slight whine, drowning out more of the questions Christine was firing off along with her pleas for a further exclusive.

-0-0-0-0-0-

The big grin on Christine's face was evident as the armored duo retreated into the distance. She took out a stubby box from her nurse uniform and clicked it off and pulled out the hastily cobbled button camera she lifted from their news van. She would have the first-ever close-up of the armored alien in history.

"Did you get it, Dan?" She spoke into her disguised earpiece to her partner on the ground.

"Yeah, boss, but we got a problem." Dan Franks replied.

"What is it?" She didn't like the tone in Dan's voice one bit.

"For some reason, when I tried playing it back for further editing, all I'm seeing is static." Dan said, frustrated as he rechecked his machines, but to no avail. "Sweetheart, I don't know how they knew you were wired, but I think they frigging erased everything somehow."

The following expletives in response to that bit of information had the cameraman scrambling to lower the speaker volumes, silently thanking his lucky stars that the alien somehow also cut their live-feed to the station or else the board of censors would have a field day from another Atwater rampage that would cause even the most foul-mouthed sailors to cringe.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Janna had to smother a snicker while her cousin laughed out loud at the way the reporter kept on ranting for the better part of five minutes before Anna cut the connection via JARVIS's uplink.

"Who knew someone outside the Romany would know so many swear words." Janna said with a grin as she scrolled through the transparent data clipboard in her hands. "For a reporter, she knows more than her share of foreign languages: Russian, Swahili, Chinese, French, Japanese, Farsi, and the gamut of a few Main middle-Eastern dialects. She did a stint during Operation: Dessert Storm on her second assignment into the field – not bad for a rookie at that age. Heh, she's also almost got herself on the no-fly list several times for angering the wrong politicians and government heads not only in the US of A but also everywhere else. Senator Royland from DC was quoted to have called her some rather unflattering things one time she came down on him on a proposed budget she somehow dug up from a former NID recruit a few weeks before said recruit vanished into anonymity for reasons unknown."

"I heard about them, the NID I mean." Anna said as she tracked Xander and Kendra's return flight. "A friend of mine said they went under a different name back then, but were just as crooked then as they are now - actually even more now that they have splinter groups within their splintered group. I think Jameson should be apprised of this in case the NID start trying to snoop around Xander's company."

"Actually, Miss Anna…" JARVISs' voice came through the room speakers. "They have already made several attempts that Xander was aware of ever since two of SG1's team members paid us a visit a few months ago."

"Why didn't we know about that?" Janna asked, alarmed.

"Xander wanted to keep it on the down-low, on his orders." JARVIS replied. "A few of them had almost air-tight background checks when they tried the employment angle, unfortunately for them; I was able to get around those rather easily and Xander is keeping at least two on the payroll just to keep an eye on them."

"Anyone we know?" Anna said as she pulled up their employee sheet on her own data clipboard.

"Bernard Jacks, one of the clerks from our Research and Patents Division and Amanda Riviera from Data Core Analysis." JARVIS supplied as he pulled their service files as well as their real NID service files. "Xander has me filtering what information should be available to them as well as gathering enough evidence on them as well and their real employers. Miss Riviera is the more dangerous of the two as her real service record listed her as an NID recruit pulled from the CIA's cybercrimes intelligence division with some assassination training in her background."

"A hacker's hacker." Janna said with worry as they studied her encrypted service record; then she noticed something. "JARVIS, her NID service record is spotless – almost too spotless. Her CIA dossier is about the same, hell, especially her CIA dossier. I'm surprised the NID didn't notice this."

"That concerned Xander as well." The A.I. said as he focused on Riviera's personnel files. "Her official and non-official CIA records total only four years within their service before she was pulled into the NID, however, analysis indicates her level of training to have been more than twenty years. The only thing we can say for sure upon further research was that her real files were never entered into any such computer system that was tied to any clandestine government network we know of, ergo it could be encrypted under a separate system not tied into any of them… or as hardcopy inside a filing cabinet that not even I can get into as it isn't saved into a hard drive hooked up to the world-wide web."

"She's a very good double agent then for a cover to be deeper than deep." Janna said as she committed Amanda's face to memory. "The question is: who is she really working for?"

"No data at the moment." JARVIS said. "Hold on, there is something happening in Rupert Giles's abode that you should be aware of."

The A.I. pulled up the surveillance cam footage from Giles's apartment building's security network onto the wall screen for the two women to look at.

Janna blinked. "Isn't that the Deputy Mayor of Sunnydale? What the hell is he doing there?"

"I don't know about you, but the guy sure looks nervous as hell if you ask me." Anna muttered aloud as the man in question kept glancing around while talking to the Watcher. "Do you normally put everyone under surveillance, Jarv?"

"Not really per se." JARVIS said. "Xander had me hack local security cams and place several more cameras where there weren't any around town in the eventually that something needed our attention as well as for safety concerns. They were not intended to spy directly but to act as an early warning system in case something should happen to any of you, and as you may have noticed; none of your were electronically bugged in any way that would constitute as an invasion of privacy."

After a few seconds, they could see Giles step aside in silent invitation and the nervous man bolted inside as the door closed behind them. A few more seconds after that, Janna's cell phone ran with Giles's number on the caller ID.

"Hello?" She answered.

"Uh, hello Jenny." Giles's voice greeted her on the other end. "I'm sorry to call at an odd time but I'm trying to reach everyone at the moment for a meeting of the utmost importance."

"Is it because Xander's in the news again?" She asked, knowing full well it might be what they have just witnessed.

"I saw that actually, flashy as you would say, but this is about something else." Giles replied in a heavy tone. "I've recently come across some rather disturbing news that might need both of our groups' expertise to see us all through."

"That bad?" Janna asked, now worried.

"I'm afraid so." Giles sighed on the other line.

"Once you gather everyone, have them come here immediately." Janna told him as she cleared the remainder of her schedule for the day. "Xander and Kassandra should be back shortly and I've cleared the main conference room for everybody. Make sure you guys aren't followed."

"Thank you, we'll be there shortly." Giles said as he hung up.

Janna shared a look with her cousin as Anna nodded.

Anna opened a com channel to her boss. "Xander, we may have a situation here on our hands."

"We copy that, we're on our way double time." Xander replied as he raised Kendra on another frequency, telling her to up their speed as the two raced faster back to base.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Meanwhile, "Amanda Riviera" was surprised to suddenly see people from one of her private dossiers show up on a van driven by Daniel "Oz" Osbourne as she finished her shift at work pass her by the corporate parking lot on her way out.

What was even more of a surprise was the fact that the Deputy Mayor was somehow with them.

Knowing that something big must be going down, she dialed on her cell phone and spoke hurriedly into it. "Hi honey, I'm on my way home. By the way, I'm also bringing a surprise for you."

"Gotcha, Red." A muffled voice replied on the other line. "Come on home."

JARVIS noted the conversation for further investigation, the AI was intrigued that the end signal was not to any known (at least to them) NID HQ, but somewhere out to sea – specifically somewhere in the middle of the North Pacific Ocean.

The A.I. mused on that byte of information. The double agent certainly proved to be interesting as the challenge on figuring who she belonged to continued.

-0-0-0-0-0-

The man sighed as he clicked off on the receiver after "Amanda's" call and chewed thoughtfully on the end of his cigar as he thought of the possibilities of what was going down in Sunnydale.

"I think it's about time I had a long talk with that kid."

With that, he ordered his ship back into US waters.

-0-0-0-0-0-

TBC

-0-0-0-0-0-

A/N: really sorry for the longest delay ever... RL and re-writing this took forever. I had to scrap two chapters including this one as I didn't like the way things were going - hence why this is a little shorter than most as I try to introduce the espionage aspect SG1 never touched upon with my own flair... don't get me wrong, I've already planned how all of this is going to end in an outline and I haven't run into a dry spell... its just that my free time is almost non-existent these past few months... besides I already warned you all this is all going to trickle in slowly due to RL insanity. I'm also working on the Harry Potter side of this story... and that is taking even longer as a part of me wants to rewrite everything I've written on that because of the bigger universe I plan on bringing down into this. Believe me on this though, this story - both stories - aren't dead... not by a long shot.

...on a side note before someone's nose gets out of joint: SHIELD doest NOT exist in my story... at least it doesn't exist in Xander's reality, but that's not to say some other type of agency has about the same mandate.


	30. Chapter 28

XANDER HARRIS: THE IRON TAU'RI  
By:"Gunsmith3000"  
Started 5-19-08  
Completed: ?

Disclaimers: Nothing belongs to me other than this insane idea I have that just won't let go. Iron Man belongs to Marvel, Stargate SG1 belongs to MGM. Buffy belongs to Joss... blah, blah

Summary: Xander goes as one of his favorite marvel comic characters, but gets more than he's bargained for.

- 0-0-0-0-0 -

-  
-Commencement, part 3-

- 0-0-0-0-0 -

"So G-man…" Xander started after the introductions were over and all were seated in the Pal-Core main conference room. "What's the big A-word this time?"

"Well." Giles said as he took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose in distaste of Xander's nickname. "Mr. Finch here has quite the collection of information concerning our illustrious Mayor. The man himself has the unmitigated gall to try his hand at demonic ascension."

"Interesting, I wondered when that would come up." Xander said, then spoke aloud into the air. "JARVIS, kindly show us whatever information we got on Mayor Richard Wilkins."

To Finch's shock, the blank wall behind Xander shimmered as it turned into the largest video screen he ever saw in his life. Displayed for all to see, were information that raised enough questions to the Mayor's validity of being human because strewn on the screen amongst the text data were photos of said man through the years – from the town's founding to the present day.

"Good Lord!" Giles exclaimed. "How in heaven's name didn't anyone notice the similarities through the years?"

"That's probably because of whatever the Mayor did here when he set up shop." Xander said as he gestured for Janna to fill in.

"True." Janna said as she spoke up. "According to what data Xander has gathered with his remote cameras and his remote orbital sensors, the entirety of Sunnydale is blanketed with a subtle energy field that somehow ties in with brainwave patterns dealing with selective memory. Xander was only able to find it by accident when he was trying to study the Hellmouth, he didn't know what this was until certain factors became obvious."

"Yup." Xander said. "The Sunnydale denial syndrome for anything that goes bump in the night started making sense after that once I was able to put the data together. Anna described it as something to akin to an area-effect notice-me-not spell that runs off on the ambient energy the Hellmouth is giving off. Unless the primary caster dies, it'll run indefinitely or until you are forcibly faced with the truth, or have already been touched by the supernatural."

"But that's for another time." Xander continued as he stared at Alan Finch. "What's he supposed to turn into, a giant snake or something?"

Finch gaped; the kid's guess was too close to the truth.

"You're not far off." The Deputy Mayor replied. "That was supposed to be the idea before the Silver Paladin and his partner showed up. He changed his plans and decided to turn into something with a little more firepower."

The soon-to-be ex-Deputy Mayor reached into his bulging attaché case and pulled out large, leather-bound tome then began leafing through the pages. He stopped at one page and showed them a picture of an Olvikan.

"That was what he was planning to be before those two aliens showed up." Finch said once they absorbed that piece of information. "He changed his mind after he saw how easy the Paladin was able to lift the helicopter a few weeks ago and rushed to accommodate a new ritual. He found one that was a slight variation of what he was currently doing so as not to deviate too much from it."

Finch leafed through some more pages and stopped at almost three-fourths of the entire book and showed them a picture of a massive draconian figure with four bat-like wings.

Giles and Wesley read the inscription and paled considerably. "Lohesh." The Watchers said with equal dread.

"Rather than just sacrifice a school full of graduates and visitors, he's planning to sacrifice the entire town." Giles whispered in horror.

- 0-0-0-0-0 -

Somewhere in Sunnydale, a demoness that masqueraded as one of the high school students suddenly shuddered for no reason.

Harmony looked at the dirty-blonde girl beside her by the bar inside the Bronze and raised a semi-aristocratic heavy-on-the-liner eyebrow. "Hey." She asked. "Are you spazzing? I don't wanna catch it if you're spazzing."

"No!" The girl replied forcefully, as she made her way to the ladies' room. Forget hunting for wishes to grant, Anyanka thought as she teleported once she was out of sight. Whatever was coming, she didn't like the feeling that it gave her one bit, as it made her feel as vulnerable as a human. Maybe it was time to take that overdue vacation that Halfrek had been trying to invite her to after all.

Yeah, she nodded to herself; Haiti looked real good right about now until whatever impending doom she felt that passed over the town cleared.

- 0-0-0-0-0 -

The rest of the gang had already gone home while Xander mulled over the day's events. He had the Kalderash cousins to teleport the former Deputy Mayor into hiding until the whole thing blows over as he was pretty sure that Mr. Evil Rogers – aka the Mayor – was already on to the turncoat.

That kinda explained the damned tracking devices JARVIS and Anna's wards plugged the moment the poor guy stepped within a quarter mile from the Pal-Core compound. One was a regular micro-tracker with a fifty mile range hidden in Finch's briefcase and the other one was mystical in origin around the man's aura that Anna's wards around the building automatically deactivated.

Xander let out a tired sigh, too many things happening at once for his liking. Keeping track of one's own business and the type of non-combat tech he was slowly putting out for the betterment of mankind as a whole wasn't difficult. Of course, add that with having the secret identity of a supposed alien superhero, trying to safeguard your own company from government and competitor espionage, AND trying to live a semi-normal life atop a freaking Hellmouth would send most people's stress level beyond the atmosphere. Regardless of how much Xander had changed from his little trip in space, he wasn't that invulnerable to that much punishment.

It did, however, give Xander a bit of an insight as to one of the reasons why most of the Stark personas turned to booze. The guy, no matter what version, was a bona fide workaholic that burned the candle at both ends – middle included - and always felt that he had a need to prove himself no matter what. He really should think about hiring the right kind of help that wasn't liable to blab to anyone that the Paladin and Xander were one and the same.

One other part of the gestalt personality and knowledge within him also recognized that some of them had an inferiority complex in regards to his father, Howard Stark. Hence the boozing and the women were part of the rebelliousness that was in contrast of what was expected of him to be like his father when all grown up. Whereas the comic-book shallow persona of Bruce Wayne playboy mask was just an act, Tony Stark was Bruce Wayne's act made real – a boozing, womanizing idiot savant that kept trying to outdo his father and giving his old man a raspberry and a middle finger while at it.

Xander shook his head from another reverie. Part of the price he had to pay, he guessed, for having a hell of a lot of knowledge and personalities shoved into his head last Halloween. While he swore to himself that he wouldn't become the booze tank and ultra-workaholic adrenaline junkie that Stark had been, he knew that those weren't the only vices the original Iron Man had. Like Stark, Xander developed a passion for being a hands-on gear-head.

While Tony Stark liked tinkering with older automobile models in his spare time, Xander went about it differently. The teenaged engineer tended to design newer automobiles from the ground up, though most of them never made it to the patent office due to several revisions, the one he was working on before he left for space was still sitting in a special section of Main Engineering was almost finished, all it needed was a test-run.

In this case: a test drive.

With that in mind, Xander headed for the hidden lift in his office to get there and let loose some stress.

- 0-0-0-0-0 -

Buffy sighed in her bed as she clutched her favorite stuffed pig. For a Slayer, she felt a little left out. Things had been steadily changing since Xander was irreversibly transformed into a comic-book super hero, a part of her that was the teenager buried underneath Slayer duties felt out of place next to a guy who wore armor that could probably bench press a tank with ease in said armor.

As she drifted off to sleep, she never sensed the shadow that moved away from the darkness and press a damp cloth over her nose and mouth, instantly knocking her unconscious as both shadow and Slayer vanished with a muffled pop.

- 0-0-0-0-0 -

"Shit." The observer cursed from across the street as the sensors in the disguised hippie van registered an energy spike that was similar to a wizarding mode of teleportation. He noted the time index for the record and actively scanned the area around the Summers residence. Joyce Summers was the only living humanoid entity the sensors picked up.

That meant that the Slayer was kidnapped by a possible wizard or witch underneath a disillusionment charm.

Muttering several oaths in his native Gaelic, the observer sent a burst communiqué to his superior. It didn't take long for the message to be received, and much to his surprise, the commander was already en-route to Sunnydale in a five-car convoy.

- 0-0-0-0-0 -

Roughly one hundred miles outside of Sunnydale, the lead vehicle in the five-car convoy that came in via an inlet close to the sea received the communiqué from the agent stationed close to the Slayer residence.

"Notify all agents in the area that the situation has moved up to condition: Yellow." The driver in the lead vehicle said after reading the entirety of the report. "I need Squad B in Sunnydale within the next twelve hours with all man-portable weapons on hand."

Then a second message was received that caused the commander to swear up a storm.

"Screw yellow." The man said as he paled. Once the young man gets wind of what happened, the whole town might as well become ground zero.

Whoever had taken Buffy, took Willow and Oz as well.

"Condition Red." The man barked into the communicator as he punched in the coordinates for Paladin Corporation and pressed a button marked SPM. "Get the sub cloaked and airborne over Sunnydale with our mystics and search teams prepped."

- 0-0-0-0-0 -

-TBC-

- 0-0-0-0-0 -


	31. Chapter 29

XANDER HARRIS: THE IRON TAU'RI  
By:"Gunsmith3000"  
Started 5-19-08  
Completed: ?

Disclaimers: Nothing belongs to me other than this insane idea I have that just won't let go. Iron Man belongs to Marvel, Stargate SG1 belongs to MGM. Buffy belongs to Joss... blah, blah

Summary: Xander goes as one of his favorite marvel comic characters, but gets more than he's bargained for.

- 0-0-0-0-0 -

-Commencement Part 4-

-0-0-0-0-0-

Xander shut down his phone into silent mode the moment he left the Pal-Core facilities as he put the car he designed from scratch though its paces. Like most of the Tony Starks swimming around in his head, he had developed a real passion for auto-mechanics. Unlike most of the gestalt, however, he preferred a forward approach to it.

Case in point: the car he was test-driving at the moment was an electric prototype that almost used no combustion chemicals at all. While it still used oil to help with most of the internal mechanisms that made up at least fifty percent of the vehicle, it was nothing more than a lubricant. The prototype power plant itself was a bigger, but very scaled-down version (minus the alien derivatives he originally copied from the zat gun) of the original power source that he used for the Mark Zero armor, redesigned for automotive use with a twenty-four hour lifespan before needing a recharge with a solar power collector tiled roof as a backup source that could give it an emergency charge in the event the driver wasn't able to get to an electric outlet in time before the mains ran out of juice.

All in all, according to his calculations, the prototype should last close to thirty hours on a full charge combined with the solar charge as backup. The young engineer started putting the car through its paces as he sped away from his facilities at a considerable clip, never realizing that his fast exit didn't go unnoticed from the shadows a block away from the main entrance.

Xander neared the outskirts of town when he first spotted a blockade of vehicles ahead of him and immediately brought the almost noiseless prototype to a halt.

He glanced at the review mirror and let out a curse as a black sedan came to a halt behind him, cutting off his escape. He was way too far from his armory for the sub-dermal controls to signal the armor pieces for matter transport. The only thing he had on-hand was the damn nano-undersheath that Lilandra permanently grafted to his body to keep him from dying, and he wasn't one hundred percent sure if the damn thing was bulletproof. As crazy as he was with the Stark gestalt inside his head, he was still sane enough to not try to fill his fool self with holes just to find out.

"Damn it." Xander swore at himself for being too complacent. Note to myself: make a goddamn collapsible in case of emergencies, he thought, or better yet, bring the one the Technites made for him inside a backpack from now on. There was a REASON why Tony Stark was paranoid enough in the books to always carry spares ever since he donned the armor, more so when more than a few of the Starks in his head were publicly known AS Iron Man.

The teen shook his head, it wasn't enough that they'd just found out from Giles and the that the real bad guy this time was the Mayor of Sunnydale – who was also the town's original founder who sold his soul for immortality and coming demon-godhood – and now this. The fact that he should have know better since one of the Starks inside his head knew this reality as a television series should have sufficed. But no, something else always got in the way.

The young genius engineer kept on berating himself that he was startled when he heard a tapping on the glass on the passenger side. Turning to look at the source of the noise that brought him out of it, he gaped.

If he didn't know any better, the person standing outside of his custom sports car with a smug grin on his face bore a passing resemblance in demeanor to a man his gestalt mind learned to both admire as well as hate no matter what reality he was in.

Hell, indeed, had come bearing gifts inside a hand basket. For someone who had gotten used to the impossible and improbable happen to him in the shortest time of his teenaged life on a daily basis, this would have to take the cake.

Xander opened the passenger side door under silent protest as the figure slid in.

"Hi." The older man said through a cigar clamped on one side of his mouth with a cat-ate-the canary grin as he held out his hand in greeting. "My name's Michael Knight, it seems that we have a lot to talk about."

Whatever Xander was expecting, that wasn't it.

-0-0-0-0-0-

"Since when the hell did a defunct organization like the FLAG program have a clandestine paramilitary arm?" The young engineer blurted out loud.

"Actually." Michael began. "I'm surprised you even know a little about the Foundation, but no, while the currently mothballed FLAG program shares some ties to the group I'm currently involved with, our latest incarnation is part of an older one that dates far back to the crusades and then some."

"Illuminati?" Xander asked incredulously, remembering the group one of the Tony Starks formed in an alternate reality.

"Nope." Michael grinned. "Close, but no cigar. We're not controllers behind the scenes even when we're behind the scenes, though we do seem to have more clearance than god these days to be able to get things done. Although I gotta admit, we've almost always been labeled as MIB's from time to time with some of our cases."

"But enough about that for now." Michael continued as he gestured to the men outside to disperse and tail them discretely. "Let's get a move on, standing around like this is bound to get us both noticed, thanks to your flashy car and my men outside. Nice car by the way."

"So…" Xander said slowly as he turned on the gas and reversed his direction as soon as the car behind him backed out. "Where to, Mike?"

The address Michael directed them to solved part of one of his "problems" but he managed not to look surprised and complied. As they drove in silence, the young engineer tried to remember what he had on the Foundation for Law and Government, or FLAG and its number one troubleshooter. As far as he knew, Michael Knight was a guy that barely existed until he was taken under the auspices of one Wilton Knight who, along with his father Garth Knight – for whom he named his disowned son in honor of, but in the end the boy didn't live up to his grandfather's legacy – started a premier technological company called Knight Industries. Father and son also had a side-hobby in connection to their firm, called the "FLAG" program – though Wilton Knight was billed as the founder, the ideas for such an organization were inspired by his father. FLAG's mandate was dedicated to fighting criminals who operate above the law. FLAG's "pilot program" was the use of one man and one technologically advanced car, responsible for resolving issues that went beyond typical legal measures. The theatre for said program was first instituted in the United States of America.

The man beside him was proof of that program made real as the urban legend of one man and a funky car during the early to late 1980's and early 1990's became more than supposed fiction on some usenet sites he trolled through in search for information. However, the program somehow died down and was mothballed without any discernable reason. Knight Industries still functioned, but Michael Knight somehow vanished into obscurity until tonight, although he was also listed as a de facto major shareholder for said company being run currently by a Melinda Miles, niece of the late Devon Miles, he was never seen at all.

Looks like Michael Knight never stopped trying to prove Wilton Knight's adage that "one man can make a difference." However, as Xander noted, that "one man" now amounted to several people. Just how "several" it amounted to, he didn't know.

They arrived at their destination and got out. Xander noticed as they got out of the car that several of the vehicles that corralled him a while ago parked themselves out of sight but within easy reach in case some emergency occurred.

"Damn." He noted with mild appreciation. "They're good, if you really didn't know what to look for they'd just blend in the background. Not even their cars seem out of place in this neighborhood."

Michael led the way to the door of the house and knocked. A muffled female voice called out in confusion and all he said in reply was, "Honey, I'm home."

The door opened to reveal…

"Amanda Riviera." Xander said as he eyed the strange pistol that was out of sight from any onlookers in her hand and the steady look she gave him. "Fancy meeting you here of all people, really, I'm touched. What'd I do to piss your boyfriend here off? "

One perfectly sculpted eyebrow rose up in amusement while Michael dove between then on his way inside the woman's apartment. The taller man didn't get very far before "Amanda" yanked the stogie in his mouth and threw it towards the astray on the living room coffee table.

It landed with the lit end crashing into the ceramic, effectively snuffing it out.

Xander's own eyebrows rose at that. "Excellent marksmanship, or is that markswomanship?" He said. "You know, I reckon that's one of those little tidbits of information left out from your bogus, but incredibly encrypted CIA dossier. Someone really MUST update the poor thing."

The two shared a look of stunned surprise at that.

"How the hell did you manage to break the encryption on that?" Amanda asked in shock as she turned to Michael with an annoyed tick in her left eye.

"Hey, don't look at me, I just got here." Michael said, just as shocked at the ease the young man before them figured it out Amanda's cover. "You and Strahs worked for weeks on your cover in the CIA to make it airtight to infiltrate the NID at their request. That stuff is beyond even me, that's why we have people like you and Strahs to do the hard work."

"Well, in your defense, they're really good." Xander said as he sat down without preamble, leaving the two standing in their shocked stupor. "Very good that it'll fool even the tightest and most paranoid background check everyone normally has to date. Unfortunately for you folks, what I have blows them all out of the water."

The last was said with a shit-eating grin that made "Amanda" growl at the young upstart that was technically her cover's boss. Part of her annoyance was the fact she and Sven Strahs worked on her current cover to hell and back, and all it took was a damn kid and whatever else he had to wreck it. Her professional pride wanted to wipe that grin off of Xander's face.

"Easy now." Xander said as he tried to placate the seething woman in front of him that could no doubt turn him into sushi at a moment's notice. "Your cover is not technically broken as only a select few know of you and the NID twits don't even have a clue."

"That's supposed to make me feel better?" She spat. "My cover is still blown thanks to you, wiseass."

Xander sighed as he looked at Michael. "Okay, I know who you are." He said, and pointed at the seething blond woman beside him and asked. "Who is she really?"

Michael opened his mouth to reply, but the woman beat him to it as she ripped the blond wig on her head to show that she was a natural redhead cut in a boyish style that made her look exotic and not at all unfeminine. In fact, Stark's libido would have been all over her if not for the fact that her strange pistol was still pointed at him.

"My name is Natalya Silva, lieutenant commander, first class." Her voice dropped with European undertones that made Xander blink as he thought her former accent was pure Californian, making him wonder if either of her accents were real or not. "I work alongside monsieur Knight in our endeavor to safeguard the world from external and internal threats, be it demonic or not."

Xander looked back to Michael. "Okay, enough cloak and dagger already. Who the hell are you guys if you're not CIA and not in cahoots with the damned NID nor with any of the damned alphabet soup intelligence community?"

"We're currently known as Mithril." Michael Knight replied. "Our agency has its origins tied with an offshoot of the Knights Templars, the sect that didn't become the brigands portrayed by most scholars and historians. They were those that truly believed in helping the world with unselfish perseverance and dedication. To preserve their anonymity, they keep changing their outward persona under an alias that would benefit and reflect the times with a force full of technological, natural, and supernatural resources. Almost all of us are volunteers, but with one defining goal: to preserve all sentient life against evil in whatever form it comes. "

"Well shit." He said; he certainly didn't see this one coming. "You guys have impeccable timing, because we have a doozy of an apocalypse coming: our illustriously long-lived Mayor has just decided to ascend into an old one: specifically, the mantle of Lohesh."

At their confused stare, Xander tried to explain. "Think something almost Titan sized with four huge wings on its back."

At their continued stare, Xander sighed. "Look, this is all new to me too. That's one of the reasons I was driving around to clear my head. The only other ascension like that was recorded around the 12th century AD and it decimated an entire town with minimal survivors."

"Figures." Michael muttered. "At least this gives me an idea of what happened tonight before we got to you."

"Beg pardon?" Xander asked. "What do you mean?"

The adopted heir apparent of Wilton Knight spoke with trepidation. "Roughly over an hour ago, I received a communiqué from one of my agents stationed here that Buffy Summers, Willow Rosenberg, and Daniel Osborne, have been abducted via mystical means."

"Say WHAT!"

Xander reached into his pocket for his phone and belatedly noticed he had it silenced. Sheepishly turning what could amount to a small audio bomb on as the formerly muted audio cut in mid-ring, Xander winced as Janna's vitriolic greeting washed over the room for all to hear as he put it on speaker phone.

"So, you finally answered after the seventieth try." Her face glared out to him from the screen. "Buffy, Willow and Oz have been kidnapped, and since you weren't answering, we thought you might have been as well. I've got Kendra running a search flight over the town, so where the FUCK are you?"

-0-0-0-0-0-

Despite understanding the Romany technopagan's rage, Xander was nevertheless confused. He had stealth satellites orbiting the damn planet, there was no way in hell he wouldn't show up on his own sensors as he'd calibrated them to work around the dampening field caused by the supernatural energy that surrounded the Hellmouth – and by extension – the town of Sunnydale.

"What the hell do mean "Where am I"?" The confused teen genius said in response. "I haven't left Sunnydale, I'm at the home of Amanda Riviera and her friend."

"Bullshit." Janna replied, not realizing she was on speaker phone. "Kendra flew over that area recently and you weren't even a blip on her scanners."

"I'm serious; I'm really inside her place!" Xander as he looked at the two people in front of him, and his eyes widened as he saw something propped near the wall behind the female Mithril agent.

Well that explains it, he thought. The Stark gestalt part of him that dabbled in the arcane recognized something familiar, he pointed the top portion of his phone towards the object and scanned it.

"Never mind, I think I found out how I'm not showing up on any of our scanners." He said. "Recall Kendra and have her work with you on the satellites with JARVIS, tell him to reconfigure the scans I'm sending through right now. Get everyone down to the Armory as it's the only other safe place right now other than my current location."

Once he hung up; Xander threw a pointed look at Natalya in annoyance. "Okay, mind telling me how you got a runed warding stone half the size of an office desk that looked to weigh about a ton inside your house all by your lonesome?"

Natalya shared a glance with Michael and the man simply shrugged in an "up to you" gesture.

The silent reply he got in response from the woman made his jaw drop. A stick that looked like an anorexic stake somehow materialized on her left hand and she then pointed it at the large stone.

Said stone shrank before his astonished eyes to the size of a soda can.

Xander rushed towards the shrunken stone and was shocked to find that weight had exponentially decreased as well in proportion to the size.

"What the fuck?" He exclaimed as he turned the stone over in his hand, even though it shrank, the runes carved onto the stone still glowed with the same amount of brightness as before.

"You're a magic user." Xander said as he turned and studied the woman. He now knew what the stick was.

He turned to Michael Knight and said. "She's a wanded magic user!"

"I did tell you we have a lot of different people in our ranks." Michael replied with a grin as Xander turned the stone over his hand, eventually flipping it though the air like a toy as Natalya looked on in annoyance at the treatment of her shrunken warding stone. "We'd like you and your friends to join Mithril. That was initially one of the reasons why I came to Sunnydale. I wasn't supposed to be here for another couple of days until Natalie finished her profile on you and your somehow non-existent boss-slash owner, but when one of my agents keeping guard over the Summers residence noticed something off – well, we thought you'd need all the help you can get combing the town for them."

Xander shook his head. "As fun as that sounds like, I don't think I'm ready to join any group at the moment, there's too much to do here in the Hellmouth. Though I won't mind to having some help with the local wildlife as it were, should the need arise."

The young genius thought for a second before he turned back to the female mystic spy. "Do you know of the Romany?" he asked. "Specifically the Kalderash clan?"

"Of course," Natalya replied as she transfigured her robes into something more presentable. "While most of my regular wanded Wizarding kin choose to ignore other aspects of magic, those amongst Mithril aren't that narrow-minded. We've got a whole branch full of diverse mystics. We've already been aware of the Kalderash especially when two of the higher profile clan members are working for your supposed recluse of a boss – whom most of us already deduced to be you."

"Yup, I know of them, but not personally." Michael piped in. "I know someone affiliated with them through a contact of ours that usually handles some of Mithril's European assignments., though I haven't had contact with either of them for a couple of months since Lord Henry went undercover in wanded magic user territories."

"Interesting, come on, we have to go and meet up with my friends." Xander mused as started leading them out of the house only to stop outside and groan in annoyance.

The dual gasps of shock Xander heard from behind him elevated his annoyance to being pissed off. It seemed that a few people ignored his orders through Janna and were now arrayed outside the area in plain view of the people behind him.

What made the situation worse was the armored form of Kendra hovering a few feet behind Faith with all of her weapons trained at Michael's security contingent that had gathered at the front of the building when they arrived. That was a whole can of worms he really didn't want to get into with the group representing Mithril at any time – AT ALL.

Some days, Xander thought as he closed his eyes and exhaled explosively, it wasn't worth it to get out of bed. The Stark gestalt within him agreed and wished that he had gone to the beach.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Buffy groaned back to wakefulness to the sound of leaky plumbing.

"Ah, I see someone rejoining us in the land of the living." An unfamiliar voice said from behind her.

Confused at the direction the voice was coming from, the blond Slayer suddenly realized that she was tied with a length of glowing chains hooked to the ceiling. Turning her head, she found to her horror, Willow and Oz in a similar position she was.

"Buffy…" Willow said with a heartfelt whimper as she tried to shift her full weight, but was only successful in moving her upper torso slightly. "I can't feel my legs."

"Don't worry about that." The voice said as the figure stepped into the light. The manic grin on Sunnydale's illustriously long-lived Mayor graced the three trapped teens.

"The ritual's about to start, my dear children…." Richard Wilkins laughed. "With you three as the focal point of the spell right here over the Hellmouth, you won't have time to feel anything before I'm finished consuming every single living human soul in town."

The scores of vampires and demons that the three teens were just beginning to notice behind manic magic user laughed along with him.

Deep inside, Buffy quailed as her inner Slayer spirit made a rough head count.

It was a veritable army of over three hundred combined, and if she had to guess, it was the worst of the worst of the overall demon population in Sunnydale.

-0-0-0-0-0-

-TBC-

AN: apologies for the very long delay, I have no internet for the past couple of months and I can't do more than surf and leave slight reviews on my Android while I leech off a signal from places like Starbucks, etc.

Also note that I'm hard at work on Harry Potter Iron Magius... and I am going to try re-writing my God of War sequel into something more technically inclined and not just supernatural since I've also placed it in the SG1 universe.

Also, I am experimenting on a series of shorts that took off from answering a challenge of Xander turning into the Silver Surfer... among other stories. Of course, Iron Tauri is my main focus, but so as not to be stuck in a rut, I've decided to expand on other stories to keep my creative juices flowing.

PS... if those of you recognize Mithril ... I took the liberty of making an organization after my favorite anime: Full Metal Panic. Of course, giant mechs will NOT crossover for this though some characters with familiar names will come in as liaisons from time to time.

FF(dot)net is being frustrating again in letting me post stuff up.


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